


Blood and Roses

by adumbledore



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Astoria Greengrass's Blood Curse | Blood Malediction, Bisexual Astoria Greengrass, Draco Malfoy Redemption, Dyslexic Daphne Greengrass, Friends to Lovers, Honestly this fic is a little too nice to Draco, Mainly Canon-Compliant, Redemption, Seer Astoria Greengrass, Yes I'm on Draco Malfoy POV tiktok why do you ask, actually more like friends to lovers to enemies to lovers, although I read cursed child one time and don't remember anything about astoria, anyways its about meeting your soulmate before you're ready, but they don't even know what best means, but this is not nice to pansy or zabini, except the blood curse, falling in love for the first time, its about the inherent tragedy of being in love, its about the pining, its about two people questioning the morality of their heroes, or if you include their big fight its friends to enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to lovers, questioning everything they are certain about, slowburn, trying to become the best versions of themselves, unlearning abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 50,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adumbledore/pseuds/adumbledore
Summary: Astoria Greengrass enters Hogwarts a haughty, entitled heiress, confident in the superiority of her ancestry. At 16, she is disillusioned, bitter, and fighting for her life against the very society that raised her.After a violent childhood, her school experience, one year behind Harry Potter, is turbulent. She inherits a blood curse, and with it the Sight. She falls in love with Draco Malfoy while still in school. They're too young to love properly; they’re still becoming themselves. But fate will have its out-they’ll love each other forever, as long as they don’t destroy themselves in the process.At the same time, her worldview is gradually shredded to pieces. As she meets people who defy everything she was taught about them, she begins to question even her beliefs about herself. But she doesn’t have time for philosophical ruminations. There’s a war brewing, and she has to declare an allegiance.Growing up is never easy, but the universe seems to have a personal vendetta against Astoria Greengrass.Updates Sundays!
Relationships: Astoria Greengrass & Daphne Greengrass, Astoria Greengrass & Pansy Parkinson, Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Astoria Greengrass/Theodore Nott, Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	1. prologue

_"Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy"-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Notebook E (1945)_

**April, 1997**

Astoria’s father’s rumbling voice shakes the manor, each well-preserved heirloom clattering a little with the noise. She is running through the hallways barefoot, long black plaits flying behind her, trying to escape the commotion in the parlour. She reaches her destination in what must be record time, swinging open the door to some ancient, tiny closet behind the kitchen which nobody else even knows exists.

She flops down on the ground, bunching her braids up under her head and staring up at that old stone ceiling. Her father’s voice is barely audible from here, and the stone walls warp it so that it seems almost warm. She has often wondered if there is some kind of enchantment on this place, because it’s walls seem to be an impenetrable shield. This is the safest place in the world. Still, her heart is racing. At sixteen, she should be too old for this. At sixteen, she should not be afraid of her father any longer. But there is a war brewing, and some part of Astoria and her father both know they will be on opposing sides. 

She grips her wand tightly in her hand, knowing he will not follow her but if he did, _if he did_ , at least she’d have some chance to defend herself. At least she wouldn’t be entirely helpless. But he’s not going to follow her. He never has. At least, not yet. A war is brewing, and some part of each of them knows they will be on opposing sides.

  
  



	2. five years earlier

_"I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy and free"-Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)_

**Five Years Earlier**

**September, 1992**

Astoria’s bags had been packed for weeks. Today, finally, _today_ , she was going to Hogwarts. As kids, she and Daphne had dreamed of school, dreamed of casting spells and playing quidditch and eating in that famous Great Hall. And then last year, Daphne had left her all alone. Despite Daphne’s show of having an amazing time at school, Astoria knew things weren’t picture perfect. There seemed to be an edge in Daph’s voice whenever she talked about her friend Pansy, and then there were the letters.

Astoria pretended to be oblivious, but she knew Daphne was having trouble at school. Once, while her father was reading a letter from Hogwarts, he had turned his anger towards Astoria and sent a curse at her. She was frequently subject to his mildly painful hexes and jinxes, and she had only felt this one once. It caused long cuts down the entire body and was outstandingly painful. She had been bleeding for days. So when he uttered the words, she had never been more terrified. And in an incredible feet of accidental magic, she was suddenly standing five feet to the left. Her father had stared at her for several seconds, and then laughed. 

“Well we know you’ve got it in ya, don’t we? You won’t disappoint me” Then he ruffled her hair and left the room. Legs shaking, she did the only thing she could think of, and read the letter he seemed to have forgotten about. It was from Professor S. Snape, head of Slytherin House, about how Daphne was struggling in all of her classes, particularly charms. If she couldn’t get her grades up, she may not be invited to return for second year. 

Despite Daphne’s less-than-perfect experience, Astoria’s enthusiasm couldn’t be dampered. Though younger, she had always been better than her sister: taller, faster, stronger. She had no doubts she’d be a more powerful witch, too. Now, she could prove herself. And if she did really, really well at Hogwarts, maybe her father would be proud of her. 

They Apparated to Platform 9 ¾, the girls clutching their parents arms. Like most Pureblood children, they had been raised primarily by Squib nannies, and so the goodbye was not excessively tearful. After a calm, nearly formal round of hugs and goodbyes, Astoria and Daphne dragged their trunks onto the train. 

“You can come sit with my friends”, Daphne told her, “but don’t be embarrassing”. When they arrived at the compartment, there were already two students there, dressed in Slytherin robes. 

“Vincent Crabbe and Pansy Parkinson,” Daphne said, slightly emphasizing the word Parkinson, “This is my sister Astoria”. Tori quickly processed her meaning. Pansy, like them, was a member of the sacred twenty-eight. Pansy stood and shook Astoria’s hand, then hugged Daphne, but in a way that seemed not altogether affectionate. She nudged Crabbe as she sat back down, and he started slightly.

“Hullo, Daphne. Daphne’s sister”. In a few minutes, a small, pale boy walked in, accompanied by a much larger one. He stared at Tori.

“Who are you?” Daphne opened her mouth to speak, but Tori felt the sudden need to speak for herself.

“Astoria Greengrass”. He smiled.

“Draco Malfoy”, and he took a seat. “So, Astoria, hoping to be sorted into Slytherin are you?” She again felt the need to prove herself.

“Not hoping”, she said intensely, “I’m going to be”. He leaned back.

“I guess we’ll see”. The conversation seemed to be over. 

As the train ride passed, Astoria found they were a very difficult group to hold a conversation with. Pansy oozed condescending, and Crabbe and Goyle were very clearly so thick in the head they could scarcely add more than a few words. Daphne seemed bothered everytime Astoria spoke, and Malfoy was just… self important, she guessed. Finally, they arrived at Hogsmeade, where a very large man was calling for first-years. Tori followed him until they reached the famous Black Lake, where she jumped in a boat with three other students. She hadn’t seen any of them on the station. One, a blonde girl with curly hair, was the first one to introduce herself.

“I’m Rebecca McCall” She said. She spoke in an American accent.

“Astoria Greengrass. Where are you from?” 

“California” She said easily. “But my mom’s English, and she wanted me at Hogwarts over Ilvermony”  
“She went to Hogwarts, then?” 

“She’s a squib”  
“Oh” Astoria didn’t know what to say-I’m sorry? 

“But she grew up dreaming of Hogwarts just like everyone else, and my cousin’s in second year”.

“My sister’s in second year! Who’s your cousin?” 

“Hannah Abbot. Have you heard of her?” Astoria hadn’t, but she recognized the last name. Abbot; the first name on the list of the sacred twenty-eight she had been forced to memorize. How much did Rebecca know about British pureblood culture? A lot, probably, if her mom was an Abbot, but she could be related on Hannah’s other side. How should she respond? All she knew about the Abbots was that some people said they were blood traitors. She thought about it-

“The name sounds familiar. What house is she in?”

“Hufflepuff” Astoria didn’t want to be rude, so she just said

“Is that where you’re hoping to go?”  
“I don’t know, my family doesn’t really have a house we all go to. I’ve always thought I could be a Ravenclaw though. I think I’d be happy as anything but Slytherin”. Tori gave up on niceties.

“My whole family’s been in Slytherin, and I will be too”. 

“Oh, well, I-”

“I’m hoping for Slytherin too”, another girl on the boat said, turning around. She smiled at Tori and extended a hand. 

“Katherine Selwyn”. The sacred twenty-eight. She shook it.

“Astoria Greengrass”. The recognition in Katherine’s eyes made Tori sure that she too knew the twenty-eight by heart. They shared a meaningful glance, that Tori interpreted as; we are both members of ancient pureblood families, we will be in the same house, and we have just been disrespected, which translated into privileged eleven year-old as ‘we are now best friends’.

Katherine and Tori walked side by side into the Great Hall, marvelling at the night skythrough the ceiling. They pooled into the front with the other first years and waited. Then, finally-

“Greengrass, Astoria” She climbed up to the stool and waited for Professor McGongagall to place the hat on her head. _Astoria Greengrass._ The voice was in her head somehow, in a way that was entirely unsettling. _I know just where to put you._

‘SLYTHERIN!” The Slytherin table erupted in applause, and she felt a surge of relief as she walked to the table and slipped in next to her sister. Daphne threw her arms around Tori, her previous aloofness dissolved into excitement. Malfoy fixed her with a stare. 

“Welcome to Slytherin” Astoria grinned.

“Told ya”. She tuned back into the Sorting just in time to hear “Larson, Vivian” be sorted into Hufflepuff, “Lovegood, Luna” become a Ravenclaw, and then Rebbecca McCall, the girl from the boat, was called. She perched on the stool, playing with her robes as the Sorting Hat slipped over her eyes. The student body held their breath and waited until eventually-

“SLYTHERIN!” The hat was pulled off her head, revealing a girl who looked very, very shocked. She walked slowly over to the Slytherin table, and did not sit anywhere near Astoria, who was laughing. Everyone stared at her.

“It’s just, that girl… She was talking on the boat about how the worst possible thing would be to be sorted into Slytherin”. The second-years all turned to look at Rebecca, who fixed her gaze on the plate in front of her. Soon, Katherine Selwyn slid in next to storia, and they waited for the rest of the sorting. There wasn’t many left. ‘Trent, Cora’ became a Ravenclaw, and ‘Trent, Caleb’ a Hufflepuff. ‘Valmont, Ryan’ was sorted into Ravenclaw, ‘Weasley, Ginevra’ into Gryffindor, and just like that, the Sorting was over. 

The feast was delicious. Greengrass Manor had a few former Hogwarts house elves, but her parents had always said nothing compared to the food at Hogwarts itself, and they had been right. Then, the first years followed a prefect, Gemma Farley, to the Common Room, and finally to their dormitory.

Their trunks had already arrived, and the five Slytherin girls selected beds. There was some contention over the one nearest the window, but it took only a strong, angry look at the redhead for Astoria to secure it for herself. The redhead had introduced herself as Olivia, and she had some last name or other that Astoria had failed to memorize because she didn’t think it entirely important. Lydia Backsworth was a member of a prominent pureblood family, although they, like the Potters and most others, hadn’t made the cut for the sacred twenty-eight. Other than Rebecca, the sort-of-muggleborn Slytherin-hater, Astoria figured they had been given a pretty good group. 

She fell back onto her bed and closed her eyes on her first night at Hogwarts.

  
  



	3. enemies of the heir

_"In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice"_

_-_ _Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1860)_

**November, 1992**

_The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware._ It had been a day since Mrs. Norris had been petrified, and the words were still ringing in Astoria’s mind. Katherine seemed excited by the prospect. So did most people: Katherine and Lydia and Pansy and Draco and even Daphne.

 _They_ weren’t enemies of the heir, they were pureblooded Slytherins. No one would ever come after them! And if the heir to Slytherin meant to rid Hogwarts of the mudbloods, Astoria was all for it. So what was it, that sat so uneasily in her stomach? Something was wrong with this, although she couldn’t vocalize it, or even identify it.The Chamber of Secrets couldn’t be real. Someone must be playing some sick, cruel joke on the Hogwarts Student body. But to nearly kill a cat for a prank? Whoever it was should be permanently checked into St. Mungo’s.

“You know, the last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, someone _died_ ”. Katherine was ecstatic, glancing around the great hall. “Who do you reckon it’ll be this time?” Astoria just shrugged, but it seemed to be a rhetorical question anyways. “I hope it’s Colin Creevey. God he bothers me, running around with his little camera, taking pictures of Harry Potter”. 

“Are we taking bets on mudbloods?” Pansy Parkinson was sliding into the seat next to them. “I hope it’s Granger”. 

“If Granger died, I’d be top of the class”. Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle were there as well. Astoria frowned. 

“You’re being beat by a muggleborn?” Malfoy stared at her, gripping a fork.

“Yes”. The second-years were looking between the two of them in what seemed like shock. Apparently, nobody else ever mentioned it. Something about the way he was glaring at her made her want to look down, apologize, move away. But at the same time, she didn’t get why he got to boss everyone around all the time. She was a pureblood, an heiress, a powerful witch. She had been receiving top marks in all of her classes. There was nothing that put the Malfoys above the Greengrasses, and she wouldn’t be made afraid of Draco Malfoy. She held her gaze. Blaise Zabini looked up and down the table.

“Who do you think the heir to Slytheirn is?” Malfoy returned to the conversation, distracted.

“Well it’s not Potter. God I wish people would stop saying it’s Potter”. Crabbe and Goyle grunted in agreement. 

“Of course not”-Pansy said soothingly. “It’s probably a seventh year, or-” she looked to Malfoy- “someone even closer”. She paused and smiled. “But it must be a Slytherin”. Draco gave her a rewarding smile, and Astoria choked on her drink. She couldn’t believe Pansy catered everything she said like that, and more importantly, she couldn’t believe that her sister was allowing someone so pathetic to push her around. 

“Right!” Daphne said, perfectly on cue, “Definitely a Slytherin”. Astoria hated seeing the way her sister behaved around the other second-years, so she changed the subject.

“What I don’t get is why they would go after a cat. How is a cat an enemy of the heir?” Katherine gave her a withering look. 

“Because Filch,” She said, as condescendingly as an eleven year old can manage, “is a dirty Squib”. Rebecca, who had had her gaze trained on her meal for most of the conversation, knocked over a glass of pumpkin juice. “Oh _sorry_ Rebecca,” Katherine said very sweetly, sounding anything but sorry. “I forgot about your mum”. 

“Tergeo” Rebecca muttered, cleaning away the spill. “I wasn’t even paying attention”. 

**December, 1992**

By Christmas, two more students and Nearly Headless Nick had been petrified. Katherine was excited by Colin Creevey’s condition, even though he was still alive, and since Justin Finch-Fletchley was in Daphne’s year, there was some speculation that the heir was working up through the years. Astoria was sharing this with her father, one soft December afternoon, when she made the mistake of saying “It’s really scary, actually”. He slammed down his glass of firewhiskey.

“And why would that be?” Astoria stared at the ground.

“It’s just-last time, someone died”.

“A mudblood died”. She kept her head down. “Are you associating with mudbloods, Astoria?”

“No”. 

“Then why do you care?” He leaned forwards. “I don’t believe you”. She dug her nails into her palm and looked up.

“My best friend is a Selwyn. I’m friends with a Backworth and a Parkinson and a Malfoy. I have no mudblood friends”. He took a sip of firewhiskey slowly.

“Then _why_ is it scary?” Astoria glanced helplessly at Daphne who shrugged almost imperceptibly, as if to say _I don’t know how to help you._ She didn’t want anyone to die, regardless of whether or not they were mudbloods. Maybe they didn’t deserve their place at Hogwarts, but they shouldn’t have to die for it right? But how to express that to her father without making it seem like she cared about mudbloods? She couldn’t, so she just shook her head.

“It’s not. You’re right. I’m sorry”. This appeared to pacify him. He leaned back.

“Good”. 

**February, 1993**

“So what are you going to do if Hogwarts is closed?” Olivia asked one night in the girls dormitory. 

“I’m going to Durmstrang” Astoria told her. Personally, she would prefer Beauxbatons, but her father had been perfectly clear. It was Durmstrang, or she could give up on her magical education. 

“Same. Durmstrang”. Of course, Katherine would end up at the same school as Astoria. Why was that disappointing? They were best friends!

“Ilvermorny” Rebecca said, and Lydia rolled her eyes.

“Obviously. My mom went to Mahoutokoro, so I’d probably go there”. 

“Guess I’ll be alone at Beauxbatons then”. Olivia flopped onto her bed. A general sense of desolation hung in the air. For months, it had been exciting. The heir to Slytherin, returned! The school cleansed of those who did not belong. Now, the threat seemed more real. No one could figure out if Rebecca counted as muggleborn or not. She could be the next victim. 

Astoria had been dreaming of Hogwarts her entire life. Now, it could be over before it had begun. And besides… as much as she had claimed that she didn’t associate with mudbloods, there were some students in other houses that she was secretly, quietly friends with. With Hailey Anjou from Hufflepuff and Ryan Valmont from Ravenclaw, both muggleborns, she had formed a sort of accidental Charms study group. There were plenty of muggleborns in the Gobstones Club with her that she loved to spend time with. Mudbloods were inferior, and they didn’t belong at Hogwarts. Why did this tiny, secret part of her want them here?

  
  



	4. italian summers

_"I’d give all the wealth that years have piled,/the slow result of life’s decay,/to be once more a little child/for one bright summer day"_

_-Lewis Carroll, Solitude (1856)_

**July, 1993**

In the end, Harry Potter saved the day because of course he did. Astoria had spoken with him three times total, and each time he had forgotten who she was. While she didn’t have a vendetta against him like most of the second-years seemed to (and with Death Eater parents, who could be surprised), but he seemed very stuck in his own world, with little regard for those outside his immediate circle. Or immediate triangle, because word was he really only had two friends. She might not be the savior of the wizarding world, but she had plenty of friends and remembered people’s names when she spoke to them. Okay, so maybe she had a bit of a vendetta. Whatever. It came free with being sorted into Slytherin. 

Anyways, exams were cancelled, which meant she lost the chance to prove herself as the best witch in her year. If she had been able to write them, she would’ve been top of the class, and then her father would’ve finally been proud of her. Instead, she spent several admittedly delightful days down by the Black Lake. 

Katherine had invited Astoria and Lydia to her summer house in Italy, and now the three of them were spending their days by the water, swimming and relaxing, teaching themselves extra spells that hadn’t been covered in first year. Katherine's aunts and surrogate parents, both witches, were around, so the Trace couldn’t get them. If their niece wanted to do underage magic with two Slytherin girls from some of Britain’s most prominent pureblood families, they were not about to stop it from happening. 

The Malfoys spent their summers on an island just off the shore, a few kilometres from Katherine’s house, and the girls had made several jokes about inviting Draco to hang out with them. While none would have objected to his company, they also could not determine who was to ask him. Astoria swore up and down that he hated her, Katherine ‘had too much dignity’, and Lydia simply pretended to be illiterate. 

“We could always just pull a Pansy Parkinson” Lydia said one day as they lay in the grass of Katherine’s orchard. “Dear Draco, I’m lost without your presence” Astoria laughed.

“Oh Draco, everything you’ve ever said is perfect and correct”

“If I mirror your every movement and echo your every thought, will you love me?” Katherine added, and they collapsed into laughter. 

As it turned out, there was no need to write Draco, or to pretend to fawn over him like Pansy, because Katherine’s aunts decided to host a dinner party for all the wizarding families in the area. Apparently by “area”, they meant “Southern Europe” and by “all”, they meant “rich, high status purebloods”. This included the Malfoys, the Rowles in Spain, and a few other families who lived in Europe permanently. 

At dinner, they were seated with the youngest members of each family: Draco Malfoy, Rowena Rowle, who was fifteen or sixteen and, like her namesake, a Ravenclaw, Afonso and Vicente Ferreira, Beauxbatons students from a prominent Portugese family, and Mateo Novak from Croatia, the upcoming Beauxbatons Head Boy.

Katherine’s parents had allowed them each a glass of nettle wine, but as the night went on, that single glass morphed into several. Even Draco was laughing along with everyone. Eventually, someone suggested they go exploring, and they excused themselves from the table. Astoria couldn’t explain how she found herself in the orchard with Afonso, but she knew she was sitting under a tree with him. He was going into second year too, and they talked about school, and the differences between Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, and about Quidditch and whether Portugese or British wands were made better. All of a sudden they were talking about their parents expectations and that strange unsettling feeling they had about blood supremacy. They looked up at the stars and Afonso asked her if she believed in divination, if their destinies were really predetermined, written into the stars. Whether you could change your destiny and if you couldn’t, did free will exist at all? 

And then all of a sudden she was kissing him. The wind was warm and the stars were beautiful and she still had that sparkly wine feeling in her stomach and- there were footsteps. They pulled apart just before Lydia and Rowena approached.

“There you are!” Lydia criticized. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Astoria’s ears felt hot.

“We’ve just been here”.

“Well come on, we’re having a fire on the beach”. 

By the time they arrived, the fire had already been lit, with Katherine, Draco, Vicente, and Mateo sitting around it.  
“Found these two just sitting in the orchard together” Rowena was smiling.

“Really?” Vicente said interestedly, looking at his little brother. “And what were you doing in the orchard?” Cheeks burning, Astoria sat between Draco and Katherine.

“Talking” Afonso said stubbornly, and she felt a surge of relief. 

“Talking”. Vicente repeated. “Interesting”. He grinned and raised his hand for a high five, which Afonso ignored in order to take a seat next to Mateo. There had been an empty space between Astoria and Draco, and she felt a confusing mix of feelings when Afonso refused to sit by her. Disappointed, because they must have been talking forever and she felt like they had had a real connection, but also incredibly relieved that he hadn’t brought up any more scrutiny by sitting next to her. Katherine stared at her with a purposely exaggerated, jaw-dropped expression, and Astoria shot her a pleading look that she hoped conveyed _I’ll tell you later, please stop._

Following the dinner party, the girls spent nearly every day with Draco, swimming, exploring Muggle towns, or playing 2v2 Quidditch, which wasn’t really Quidditch at all. She learned several things about her uptight classmate during that trip; he hated plums, loved pumpkin juice, felt like shoes were restrictive, and was insecure about how blond his hair was. She soon discovered, through passing him in the clouds, that he had the same habit of night time flies as her. It made her wonder what might be going on in his life, under the surface. Astoria only really flew when there was something on her mind, something that was preventing her from sleeping, which in Italy was mostly when she received a letter of criticism from her father, or one from Daphne begging her to come home. What was stopping the golden boy from being able to fall asleep? She never asked, because it was none of her business, really, and soon enough her trip was over. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: yes, this chapter depicts twelve and thirteen year-olds drinking. Some justifications:  
> 1\. The wizarding world seems to be very lax on its alcohol laws: the Leaky Cauldron, a pub, is a child’s first introduction to the magical world, and thirteen year olds routinely drink Butterbeer (which is explicitly alcoholic-see the Winky incident) in front of and with the consent of their teachers  
> 2\. In my experience growing up in private schools, the wealthier the family, the more likely they are to allow their kids to drink wine on special occasions at a young age (and if the parents have had a few too many, the kids have basically free reign)  
> 3\. They are British, which has a different/stronger drinking culture than North America, not to mention that they are currently in Italy.


	5. welcome home

_"She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected"_

_-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957)_

**August, 1993**

Astoria returned to Greengrass Manor for the last half of the summer. Far from the relaxing luxury of Italian beaches, her home was as it always was: full of strife. The topic this year was, once again, Daphne’s grades. While they had improved since last year, and she was no longer at risk of failing out, Astoria had finished at the top of the class, and the two sisters were constantly compared. 

“I just can’t do it!” Daphne would say in tears. “I know I’m smart and I can understand the theory and I can do magic! Once I can get the incantation I can do it! But I can’t figure out the incantions, they’re just, I just can’t get them!” Their father would shoot her with some hex or other.

“So you’re stupid? I didn’t raise you to be stupid!” Daphne would just cry, and try to explain that there was something inhibiting her, something she couldn’t control or understand. Astoria wanted to help her sister- she understood what she was saying, to an extent. While she didn’t know how it felt, or have any understanding of why Daphne was the way she was, Astoria had noticed it in action. It wasn’t that Daphne wasn’t a powerful witch; the opposite, actually. When she was able to master a spell, her magic was strong, and always struck true. It was just that it took her forever to learn them. For some reason, her brain just couldn’t compute the incantations themselves. 

But Astoria was twelve years old, and terrified of her father. What was she meant to do? If she could, she would leave the room and hide in her secret spot behind the kitchen. She and Daphne spent hours sitting locked in their bedrooms, talking about what their lives would be like when they came of age, when they strung up the courage to defend themselves, when they left this place and never came back. They counted down the days until Hogwarts. 

**September, 1993**

September 1st could not have come quickly enough. Once again, the sisters and their parents Apparated to Platform 9 ¾. They found a compartment where Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Lydia were already seated, and joined the group. Katherine and Pansy took up the final seats in the compartment, and although it was a similar group as to last year, it rather felt as though Daphne was sitting with Astoria’s friends instead of vice versa. While she hadn’t spent any extra time with most of the third-years, Draco seemed to have decided they were officially friends, which was enough to make Crabbe and Goyle defer to her, and even Pansy to treat her as a begrudging equal (or near equal). The same circumstances applied to Lydia and Katherine, who, like her, seemed slightly bemused. 

Astoria was enjoying her strange new status, although she felt a little guilt for having ‘stolen’ Daphne’s friends in some way. Still, the conversation on the train was easy, until all of a sudden, it shuddered to a stop. Katherine stood and opened the door, glancing out into the hallway, until the lights flicked off and the train began to shake. She turned back to the compartment.

“What’s happening?” Astoria asked her, but Katherine just shook her head.

“I have no idea”. It grew very, very cold, and Tori found herself rubbing her hands together, trying to keep warm. There was something unsettling in the air, and the students stared at each other silently. Then- a tattered robe, a bony hand. The door was sliding open. The most horrific creature Astoria had ever seen glided into the compartment. It seemed like all the air had been suctioned away. She felt like she was drowning, or choking, or being sliced open by a million of her father’s tiny hexes. After a moment, the creature floated away. Once Astoria was able to process, she knew exactly what had happened.

“Dementors”. Pansy said hoarsely.

“Looking for Sirius Black”. Astoria looked around the compartment. Draco looked somehow even paler than usual, Crabbe and Goyle nauseous, and Lydia’s hands were trembling. But no one seemed quite so shaken up as Daphne and, Tori was sure, herself. There was a few more moments of silence until Draco leaned back in his seat, clearly trying and failing to pretend he was unbothered.

“I hope Black gets to Harry Potter before the Dementors” He drawled, but not even Pansy was in the mood to humour him. The group stayed silent until the train shakily began to move again. Astoria stood up.

“I’m going to find the trolley”. She just needed to get out of the compartment, where she still felt like she was suffocating. The hallways were mainly deserted, and there was something very peculiar about strolling through a Hogwarts Express that wasn’t bustling with students. The only other person she saw was a middle-aged man in tattering robes, who smiled mildly at her.

“Hello”. 

“Um, hello”. She stared at him, and he seemed to understand her confusion.

“I’m Professor Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher”. She nodded slowly.

“Teachers don’t usually take the train”.

“No, they don’t, do they?” But he offered no explanation. “Are you feeling alright?” Something about this wizard, with his mild tones and kind eyes, made Astoria feel like she could be honest with him.

“Not really. I think the Dementors really got to me”. He nodded.

“Might I recommend chocolate? I happened to just encounter the trolley witch that way”. He pointed behind him. 

“Chocolate, really?”

“It helps with Dementors” he said, standing in a way that indicated he needed to get moving.

“Alright. Thank you, Professor”. She set off in search of the trolley. 

When she finally found it, there were a few other students crowded around. 

“Astoria!” It was Ravenclaw Cora Trent, who had shared flying class with Astoria last year. They hugged. 

“Get chocolate” Tori told her. “Some professor said it helps”. They ordered Chocolate Frogs, and after a few bites, she felt her head clearing. Cora, ever the gossip, turned towards her with a delighted look on her face.

“Did you hear? Harry Potter _fainted_!” Astoria nearly spit out her chocolate. 

“No way! Didn’t he fight the Basilisk?” Cora was laughing.

“And killed You-Know-Who as a literal baby. But Dementors are too much”. Astoria was delighted. She returned to her compartment, where everyone seemed still withdrawn.

“Harry Potter fainted when he saw the Dementors!” She announced, and all of the sudden the Slytherin compartment was bubbling with conversation.

At the feast, Dumbledore first monologued about the Dementors, and then introduced Professor Lupin. Lupin’s advice about the chocolate had been helpful, and Astoria felt like she trusted him, but his shabby appearance made her wonder how competent he’d really be as a teacher. Looking around, it seemed most of the other students shared her qualms. Dumbledore, however, quickly moved on to speaking of Professor Kettleburn’s retirement 

“I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to gamekeeping duties”. She applauded politely.

“Astoria!” Pansy reprimanded. “He’s an abomination, and an idiot. And now, he is a professor! Why are you clapping?” She looked around and noticed nearly everyone hadn’t moved. 

“Well it’s not really a real class, is it?” No one responded. “What? Merlin’s beard, it’s Care of Magical Creatures, of course it’s taught by a magical creature himself”. There was some laughter, but Katherine was still looking at her with a bit of mistrust.


	6. keep your enemies closer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note to say that there will not be a chapter next Sunday. I have midterms and several midterm papers all the next two weeks, and while I have a draft I won't have time to edit it properly. This is NOT an abandonment or even really a hiatus, I will be skipping one week and then I promise I will be back. Also, all of the chapters following this one are quite a bit longer, I promise.  
> Sorry guys, I *promise* I will be back very soon!

_ "Two things remain irretrievable: time and a first impression" – Cynthia Ozick, Trust (1966)  _

Second-year was more difficult than Astoria had thought it might be. Every teacher had given them the same speech at the beginning of the year; first year was for the fundamentals, you’re not a beginner anymore, the course work has stepped up and your work ethic must do the same. In just the first week, she had been assigned a potions essay, three chapters of reading for Defence, a series of complex calculations for astronomy, and a spell to master for each Charms and Transfiguration. She was drowning. Nearly every night, she had been up in the Common Room working while other students chatted nearby, 

“Can you imagine? That idiot Hagrid, a Professor! My father’s on the board you know, I’ll have him removed. He never even finished at Hogwarts! What exactly qualifies him to teach us?” Astoria blearily looked up from her essay. It was late, and she could’ve sworn she had heard this exact conversation at least three or four times before. Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy, ever the loyal followers, were nodding sympathetically, although even they seemed to be trying to conceal their boredom. Tori yawned.

“Draco,” she said, before she could even think about what she was saying. “No one cares”. Malfoy’s gang stared at her in horror, while Pansy wore a slight smile, like she was excited Astoria had slipped up in some way. But Draco began to laugh. While Tori hadn’t intended to make a joke, soon she was laughing too. Slowly, the others joined in. But Draco abruptly stopped and turned to glare at his goons.

“Think that’s funny? Do you not care what I have to say?” Pansy’s eyes widened, while Crabbe and Goyle looked between each other, distressed. 

“Of course we do!” Pansy was now trying to save the day. Draco scoffed. Pansy turned to glare at Astoria, like his erratic behaviour was somehow her fault. Even though Astoria had no idea what had just happened, or why, she glared right back at Pansy. 

Everything was strange this year. After the summer, Draco was consistently inviting her, Katherine, and Lydia to hang out, which Pansy despised. Katherine was being odd as well, always making jokes about upstaging Astoria for top of the class, taking her crown, but there was an edge to them that she wasn’t so sure was friendly. Astoria wondered if it was the Dementors, sucking the joy out of the air even from outside the castle. 

**October, 1993**

By no choice of their own, Astoria and Rebbeca had been assigned Transfiguration partners for the entire term. After two classes of lectures and an assigned essay on _Revelio_ , they were finally allowed to practice the spell. Rebecca transformed a Porcupine to Pincushion, and Astoria concentrated very hard.

“Revelio”. Nothing. She ran through the wand movement in her mind and geared up for another attempt. “Revelio”. Nothing. “Revelio”. The pincushion twitched slightly but did not reveal its true form. “Revelio. Revelio. Revelio! REVELIO!” 

“Stop!” Rebecca said, and Astoria threw her wand down on the table. “That’s not going to help!” Astoria narrowed her eyes.

“And what do you think I should do, then?”

“I don’t know! Just… not what you’re doing now!” Astoria was angry now. 

“Yea no shit! I’m not stupid!”  
“Could’ve fooled me! You know they say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?”

“Shut up Rebecca!”  
“Miss Greengrass, Miss McCall!” McGonagall looked unimpressed. “Is there an issue?”

“No, Professor” Rebbecca said.

“Sorry, Professor, we just really want to get the spell right. It’s really important to me to do my best in your class”. 

“Please do so more quietly in the future”.

“Of course” Astoria said apologetically, while Rebecca rolled her eyes. 

“Merlin, you’re insufferable!” she whispered. “It’s really important to me to do my best!” 

“I do what it takes! You’d think a Slytherin would understand that”.

“Oh, you got me! ‘Don’t belong in Slytherin!’ Never heard that one before!”

“Ladies!” McGonagall said sharply. “I don’t see any practicing”. Digging her nails into her palms, Astoria let Rebecca take a turn.

“Revelio”. Rebecca said calmly. The pincushion twitched but did not change. Rebecca closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and “Revelio”. It shimmered and suddenly, there was a small porcupine on the desk. McGonagall nodded and looked back to her papers. Astoria scowled. 

“You didn’t even do the research! I saw you copying Hannah’s old essay! I spent hours on that! How come you can do it?” Rebecca leaned back, pleased with herself.

“Guess I’m just a better witch than you”. 

Astoria stopped working on all her other classes in order to master the spell. She would not be shown up by Rebecca McCall, who was basically a mudblood. She had been top of the year last year and on Merlin she would be top of the year again. Every day she stayed up late in the library, researching and practicing. Every day, she saw Hermione Granger there, sitting at a little table near the window. There were only a few things she knew about Hermione: she was muggleborn, friends with Harry Potter, and Draco despised her more than any other Gryffindor. She was also the brightest witch in her year, and probably all of Hogwarts. Astoria took a deep breath and approached her. Hermione barely looked up.

“If you don’t mind, I’m really quite busy, so if you could please find someone else to torment”. Her immediate assumptions made Astoria wish she had come over to pick a fight, but she really, _really_ needed help. Instead, she swallowed her pride.

“I’m having a lot of trouble with Revelio, and I was wondering if you might be able to help me?” Hermione looked both confused and suspicious.

“Aren’t you one of Malfoy’s followers?” She clenched her jaw, then continued.

“I’m not anyone’s follower. I just need help”. Hermione said nothing, so Astoria continued. “My parents have really high expectations. You’re the best in your year, and I honestly don’t know if anyone else can help me”. Hermione’s eyes softened slightly, and she gestured to the seat next to her.

“Alright, let’s take a look”. 

Under Hermione’s tutelage, she easily mastered the spell. Next Transfiguration class, McGonagall asked for volunteers to demonstrate, and Astoria shot her hand in the air in what was, if Draco’s rants were accurate, true Hermione Granger fashion. After being called upon, she walked to the front of the class. Rebecca watched her closely as McGonagall presented her a blank parchment.

“There is a message hidden on this parchment. Find it”. 

“Revelio” Astoria said easily, waving her wand. The word “success” bled onto the parchment, and McGonagall gave a rare smile.

“Excellent form, Miss Greengrass. Fifteen points to Slytherin”. Rebecca argued with her the entire way to their Astronomy lecture. Astoria argued right back, and without realizing it, they took an excessively long time to reach the Astronomy Tower. Professor Sinistra, infamously strict, whirled around at their entry.

“Miss McCall! Miss Greengrass! Decided to join us, I see?”

“Sorry Professor!” She scowled.

“Ten points from Slytherin. See that it does not happen again”. They hurried into the only remaining seats, a little table at the back of the room, and Sinistra returned to her lecture. 

“Good going” Astoria muttered.

“Oh, it’s my fault?” 

“Yea, cause you’re incapable of shutting up!”

“And you’re incapable of not rising to the bait”.

“Rebecca, have you ever wondered why you don’t have any friends?”

“Just because I’m not friends with the meanest kids in Hogwarts doesn’t mean I don’t have friends. I have lots of friends because I’m kind to everyone, even if they’re not traditionally liked. I’m friends with Luna and Vivian and Edward. Everyone knows that”. There was a hint of pride in her voice, and something finally clicked in Astoria.

“Oh my god! You’re only friends with the weirdos because it makes the rest of the school think you’re some sort of saint. You act _so_ righteous but you’re a Slytherin to the bone”. She didn’t process that she was now talking at a regular volume. 

“Shut up! You have no idea what you’re ta-”

“SILENCE!” Sinistra looked furious. “This is the second time you’ve interrupted my class. Twenty points from Slytherin, and detention for the both of you. I teach midnight classes the next two nights, so it will have to be Thursday evening”.

“Professor,” Rebecca said timidly. “Thursday is Halloween”.

“Did I ask you if there was a feast on Thursday?” 

“No, Professor”.

“Then I have no idea why you’ve chosen to bring it up. I will see you on Thursday at 7pm sharp”.

  
  



	7. the glinda and elphaba effect

_ "See how elastic our prejudices grow when love comes to bend them"-Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851) _

Professor Sinistra had sent them a note informing them their detention would be conducted outdoors, and so on Thursday, while the other girls got ready for the feast, Astoria and Rebecca silently buttoned up their winter robes. 

“Madam Hooch is in need of upkeep for the Quidditch pitch. You are to pull the weeds by hand. You will do so until I return for you, or until you have completed the field”. Astoria looked out across the vast pitch. There was no way they could clear it unless they worked for a full twenty-four hours straight, unless they used magic… The professor seemed to be reading her mind.

“I will be attending the feast, but rest assured you will not be able to use magic”. She held her hand out. “Wands, please”. Reluctantly, the two girls handed their wands over. “If I return and have reason to suspect you have not been consistently working, you will be assigned another detention. Do _not_ leave until I return for you”. She strode off towards the castle, and Astoria and Rebecca put on their dragonskin gloves. 

“You start here, I’ll start in that corner”. Astoria said shortly.

“Fine”.

“Fine!” 

They worked from their respective corners for several hours until they reached each other in the middle, about one eighth of the field cleared. It had long since fallen dark, and when Astoria reached the centre, she flopped down on the grass.

“Astoria!” Rebecca reprimanded. “We have to keep working or we’ll have to do it again!” 

“Oh come on! We’re allowed to take a break. There’s gotta be a labour law about that somewhere”. Rebecca looked as if she wanted to object, but her exhaustion seemed to win out and she lay down on the field. Astoria hoped she wouldn’t speak, because she wasn’t in the mood for a fight. She just wanted to look at the stars for a bit. Rebecca seemed to have the same idea, and they spent several moments in silence, staring up at the sky. The stars were breathtaking, and as much as she wished she were seeing them through the ceiling of the Great Hall at the Halloween Feast, some part of her was extraordinarily content out on the Quidditch pitch, even with Rebecca. 

“Feast’s probably over by now”. Rebecca said.

“So Sinistra must be coming to get us soon”. Even though the other girl had interrupted her ruminitions, Astoria chose to just agree with her. They sat up, pulled their gloves back on, and started to work. A bright light shot up from the centre of the castle and then expanded outwards, forming a shimmering dome. 

“What just happened?” Astoria asked, trying not to sound frightened. Rebecca was squinting.

“It looks like the doors are closed!” Tori realized she was right. They were locked out.

“Do you think this is part of it? She was weirdly specific about staying until she returned”. 

“There’s no way she’d be allowed to do that for a detention”. Rebecca paused. “Right?” Astoria didn’t answer. All of a sudden, the Dementors that circled the grounds, just a few hundred metres away, seemed much closer. Hogwarts never locked its doors. 

“Something’s not right”. She said out loud. Something burst out of the shadows, and they both screamed. But it was just someone’s dog, black and shaggy, running towards the Forbidden Forest. They both seemed to realize they were holding hands at the same time, and released each other in sync.

“It’s fine. We’re overreacting”. Rebecca said, and Astoria nodded.

“Let’s just keep working, and Professor Sinistra will be down to get us soon”. Even on her hands and knees, Astoria could barely distinguish what was weeds and what was meant to be there, so she resorted to ripping up plants at random.

“This is useless!” Rebecca finally cried. “I can’t see shit”. 

“I think they forgot about us”.

“Should we go back to the castle?”

“Sinistra was pretty clear”.

“Still, if she forgot we’re out here, and you know-” She lowered her voice. “Sirius Black is out there”. Astoria shivered.

“You’re right, let’s go”. They headed out across the Quidditch pitch towards the trail that led to the castle. Astoria hadn’t realized it all the times she had walked up and down in the day, but the trail was actually quite precarious. On one side, she knew, there was a steep cliff. The trouble was, she had no idea where it was.

“Sure would be nice to have a wand right now”. Rebecca said. Astoria nodded her assent, then realized the other girl couldn’t see her.

“Definitely”. She took a step, and the rock shifted, sending several pebbles rolling down the cliff. She screamed, and Rebecca grabbed her arm to steady her. 

“Ok, further to the right!” They moved over, treading even more carefully than before.

“We can’t get in trouble for this, right?”

“No way. They wouldn’t lock students out of the castle. This has to be a mistake, and it’d be more irresponsible to stay where we were”. Astoria hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. They continued on for several more minutes in trepid silence until Astoria heard a high-pitched shriek behind her. She whirled around to find she was alone.

“Rebecca?” She shouted.

“Down here!” Astoria crouched down, hands clutching the rocks, and squinted through the darkness to see Rebecca’s silhouette about three metres below her. She seemed to have slid down a slightly more gradual section, and was now wedged on a small ledge. Below her was a very large drop down to the Black Lake. Astoria was suddenly aware of the strength of the wind.

“Help me!” Rebecca cried. Tori considered. Trying to get Rebecca up would definitely endanger herself, and with no wand she had no idea how she would actually do it. Not to mention what she would gain by leaving her: permanently cemented status. Pansy would never dare bother her again. Katherine would always defer to her. No one would mess with the girl who abandoned the least-liked Slytherin in their year. 

“Astoria!” Rebecca sounded scared. Astoria weighed the pros and cons of saving her. In every situation, the cons won out. She should leave. She shouldn’t get herself killed for this girl. She should go. Her legs wouldn’t move.

“Goddamnit” she muttered, then called “Okay hold on! I don’t know what to do!”

“ _Please_ figure it out!” How did she get her up without magic? Come to think of it, she was two months into second year, how would she get her up _with_ magic? Maybe a really powerful Wingardium- okay, focus. For the first time in her life, she had to try and think like a muggle. What would keep Rebecca safe as she climbed up? A rope. Okay, no ropes, castle’s locked, a rope is made of string, string also makes fabric… She pulled her robe off and tried to rip it, no avail. She needed a knife, or a sharp rock. Blindly, Astoria felt around, finding nothing sharp enough.

“Are there any sharp rocks?” She called.

“What?”

“Sharp rocks! Can you throw me one?”

“Why?”

“Just do it!” She heard a crumbling noise, then a grunt, and a rock landed a few feet from her. Like a pyramid, it had one jagged edge. Hopefully, it would work. She pressed the point into her cloak, stepped on it, and pulled with all her might. There was a faint tearing sound, and when she looked at the cloak, the fabric seemed to have a small hole in it. She twisted the rock in circles to widen the hole, and then continued tearing down the cloth. It was a slow but effective method, and eventually she had enough fabric strips to peice together a rope, which she dangled over the side.

She considered tying the rope to herself, to give her more leverage, but honestly if something went very wrong, she was not prepared to die for Rebecca. Instead, she just dangled it down and held on tightly. Rebecca tied it around her waist and started climbing the rocks. Several times, she slipped, or grabbed a part a rock which crumbled off the cliff, but Astoria held firm and eventually, Rebecca heaved herself over the edge. She lay on the ground, still clutching the rocks around her like she was afraid she’d fall again. She turned to Astoria, who was sitting next to her.

“Thanks”. Astoria shrugged like she hadn’t just torn up her only winter cloak and dragged Rebecca up a cliff in the middle of the night with a murderer on the loose.

“Hey, what are housemates for?” 

“For a minute there I thought you were going to leave me”.

“For a minute there I considered it”. Rebecca nodded, but didn’t seem offended.

“You know I’ve always wondered, Astoria, what with your sister being everyone’s favourite punching bag and all, and you seem to care a lot about her, why you didn’t learn to be nicer”. Astoria tensed. 

“Come on, let’s go”. They stood and walked, extraordinarily carefully, down the path. There wasn’t much she could do about the way the older students treated Daphne, but she’d be damned if she let the kids in her year say anything about her. But Rebecca didn’t seem to be judgemental, about either Greengrass sister. She seemed genuinely curious, so Tori finally chose to answer. 

“I didn’t learn to be _nice_. People aren’t just automatically good to you. If you want to be respected you have to reach out and take it”. She shrugged. “I didn’t want to be Daphne, so I made you her”. 

“Respect’s not everything”. 

“But it’s enough. You know that. That’s why you spend so much time cultivating that image, isn’t it? You’re after respect too, just in a different way than the rest of us” Rebecca smiled a little bitterly. 

“The good Slytherin. The kind Slytherin. You were right, in Astronomy. It’s all an act. I wish it weren’t, but being like that’s just not in my nature. Of course another Slytherin is the only one to catch on”.

“You don’t have to put on an act to be good, Rebecca. There’s nothing wrong with you in the first place. There’s nothing wrong with Slytherin”.

“Aren’t you all blood supremacists?” Again, she didn’t seem accusational. Just asking a question. There even seemed to be a note of humour in her voice. Astoria pursed her lips, trying to form her response.

“It’s not about _supremacy_ , not really. It’s just-my ancestors have been walking these halls for thousands of years. The rich history of this school, that’s the history of my family. All of my ancestors have walked this path. Some of them might even have placed their foot exactly where I just did. My great-grandchild might do the same. We’ve always been here, we always will be here. Can’t you see there’s something special about that? I exist because of Hogwarts, and in a way, Hogwarts exists because of me. And beyond that, everything in the wizarding world has come to fruition because of history. And my family’s part of that. We’ve been Healers and potioneers and Ministers for Magic and Aurors. My family was instrumental in creating the world we all exist in. It’s my birthright not just to be here, but to influence the world for future generations. To have an effect on my descendants and on every witch or wizard after us. Power is in my blood”. Rebecca was silent, like she was thinking very hard, so Astoria just kept talking.

“It’s not that I have a _problem_ with muggleborns being here per se, but there’s something especially beautiful about those of us who are in the sacred twenty-eight still here. Still learning and living in the hallways and classrooms and common rooms like we have been for eons. Your family has been here too, with the Abbots on your mom’s side. Aren’t you even a little bit proud of that?” Rebecca was silent for several moments more. 

“I guess I am. I’ve never really thought about your perspective before”. 

“Oh, well you should. I have a wonderful perspective on most things”. Rebecca laughed, and then Astoria laughed, and then she realized she was joking with Rebecca in the middle of the night while locked out of Hogwarts with a mass murderer on the loose, and it was the most absurd situation she’d ever been in, and she laughed harder.

They made their way up to the castle, where it was clear they weren’t getting through the forcefield.

“Well, shit”. Rebecca said. 

“HELLO!” Astoria screamed. “WE’RE LOCKED OUT! PLEASE HELP!” There was no response from the silent castle, just the echo of her voice which seemed to emphasize their isolation. Rebecca chuckled.

“Couldn’t be easy, could it?” Astoria gave a long sigh.

“I guess we wait til morning”. They sat down on a patch of grass, and Tori shivered. Rebecca removed her cloak.

“Let’s share. You know, since you shredded yours into little pieces for me”. Astoria gave her a genuine smile.

“Thanks”. They lay down, the cloak stretch across both of them, and waited for dawn. 

The wait was long and agonizing. When Astoria managed to sleep, she was plagued with strange dreams. She saw Sirius Black, pale and gaunt, arguing with Professor Snape in what seemed to be some sort of manor. In another dream, she was in a courtroom, called to the stand, answering the questions of an Auror. And perhaps most strangely, there was a large room, full of bunk beds and hammocks, with posters and banners advertising Gryffindor, with some Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. The room was bustling with students, of every year and every house but Slytherin. In the far corner, in a little bunk tucked away from the action, there was one singular, tiny Slytherin flag. 

She was awoken by a voice calling her name, intense and anxious.

“Astoria! Rebecca! What in Merlin’s name are you doing out here?” As she opened her eyes, she placed the voice as Professor McGonagall’s. “Come inside the castle at once!” Neither girl objected, and as soon as they were inside McGonagall’s tone changed from frightened to angry.

“Why were you outdoors while the castle was on lockdown? Do you understand what could have happened? How dare you go outdoors?” She paused, but just as Astoria tried to interject, she continued, alarmed now. “How did you get out?”

“Professor we had detention!” Rebecca cried. 

“We were told to stay at the Quidditch Pitch until someone came to get us!” Astoria added.

“But then the shield went up-

“-and nobody came-”

“-so we walked to the castle”.

“It was pitch black-”

“-she took our wands!”

“Rebecca fell off a cliff!”

“Astoria had to turn her cloak into a rope!” 

“Enough!” McGonagall said sharply. “So I am to understand that you were serving detention on the Quidditch Pitch, and were left outside all night without wands, resulting in Miss McCall falling from a cliff?”

“Yes, Professor”. 

“And for which professor was this detention?”

“Professor Sinistra”. 

“I see. Do return to your dormitory and rest. I will see to it that you are excused from your classes today”. Gratefully, Astoria and Rebecca stumbled to the dungeons, and collapsed. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Astoria and Rebecca! My brOTP (of original characters in my own story lmao). This is a turning point for Astoria, even though she won't realize it for several years yet.


	8. birds of a feather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, Malfoy, the character you're all actually here for, has been missing from the last couple. I like Astoria and I wanted to focus on her development for a while. He's back now, and the chapter after this one will make it up to you.

_"Ambition’s a tricky thing, it’s like riding a unicycle on a dental floss tightrope over a wilderness of razorblades"_

_-Mathew Good, 21st Century Living (2013)_

**November, 1993**

Rebecca and Astoria were instant celebrities. The school was obsessed with the second-years who survived the night outside with Sirius Black. Soon, they were insisting they had seen him run through the shadows near the Quidditch Pitch. Neither would ever admit what they both knew; it hadn’t been Sirius Black at all, but a dog. Occasionally, Astoria would feel guilty, because she hadn’t seen the dog since and wondered if mentioning it could help someone find their pet. But at the end of the day, she was enjoying the spotlight.

“Oh yea, he was as close as the other side of the classroom!” Rebecca was saying one day in Defence. “Sirius Black!”

“Did he see you?” asked Ginny Weasley.

“Dunno,” Astoria told her. “He might’ve”. 

“Wouldn’t he have killed you?” Lydia asked dubiously. 

“Well, I don’t know, he also might not’ve seen us!”

“Probably spared ‘em cause he’s friends with Astoria’s parents” Colin Creevey piped up.

“Shut up Colin! He is _not_!”

“Bet he recruited you to his cause” said Ginny, “You’re spies now, aren’t you?” Astoria turned to Ginny, a little hurt at how quickly she had switched from friendliness. 

“We’re not Death Eaters just because we’re in Slytherin anymore than your parents could afford you just because they’re purebloods”. Ginny’s ears went pink, but she narrowed her eyes and kept going, which Astoria couldn’t help but respect. 

“But your parents supported You-Know-Who, didn’t they?” Astoria glared at her.

“So to be clear, you think I work for the most notorious mass murderer in the world, and you, a blood traitor, are choosing to provoke me?”

“Enough!” Professor Lupin said sharply. “Miss Weasley, none of your fellow students work for Sirius Black. And Miss Greengrass, do not threaten your classmates. If I hear another word of this, you’ll both have detention for a month”. 

“Sorry, Professor,” they each muttered.

**December, 1993**

McGonagall had just announced they would be able to pick their partners for second term, and the Slytherin girls were walking towards the Great Hall. 

“So we’re going together, obviously”. Katherine said to Astoria, who glanced awkwardly at Rebecca. 

“Actually, I think Rebecca and I were going to stay together. Sorry, Kath”. Katherine stared at Astoria like she had just killed a puppy. 

“You and Rebecca? What, you’re friends with the freak now?” Astoria rolled her eyes.

“She’s not a freak, Katherine, she was rude about Slytherin once two years ago. Isn’t it time to get over it?”  
“Wow, you care less about Slytherin then I remember”.

“I’m right here, in case you guys forgot that I’m standing directly next to you”. Rebecca interjected.

“She _is_ a Slytherin”. Astoria said, and Katherine huffed. 

“Barely. Whatever. Lydia, you’re going with me now”. 

“Olivia and I already told McGonagall”. Katherine gritted her teeth.

“Circumstances have changed,”-a glance at Astoria- “now we’re going together”. 

“What am I supposed to do then?” Olivia asked, and Katherine shrugged.

“I don’t know, figure it out”. 

**January, 1994**

Astoria was sitting in the mostly deserted Common Room with Daphne, trying to help her write an essay, when the doors were ceremoniously flung open and Draco Malfoy marched in.

“I have had the most brilliant idea!” He announced. Astoria looked from left to right, but the majority of the Common Room was just upper year students who glanced up at him, shook their heads, and went back to what they were doing. Apparently, he was talking to her. 

“Congratulations,” she said, with a little more edge than intended. He was thrown off for a split second, looking confused, but seemed to easily mask it. 

“Ravenclaw’s going to beat Gryffindor, and you’re going to help me”. He stared at her books next to her on the couch until she slowly moved them to the coffee table. He sat down, seeming like he was trying to stop himself from clapping with excitement. 

“Do you remember when Potter fell from his broom during Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff?”

“Don’t think I’ll ever forget. Can you imagine, if that had been how the Boy Who Lived died?” 

“Yea, yea” Draco said, temporarily put off. “Anyways, we’re going to make it happen again!” He leaned in conspiratorially. “We’re going to dress up as Dementors! The idiot won’t even know the difference!” Astoria looked at him warily.

“Who’s we?”

“Everyone! You, me, Pansy, the whole gang! Oh, hi Daphne”. He seemed to just notice her. “You can help too”. Astoria rolled her eyes. Treating Daphne like an afterthought, as always. 

“Draco, I’m not dressing up as a Dementor. Are you mad?”

“No!” He said defensively, then looked over with a hint of apprehension. “Do you not think we should do it?”

“No actually I think it’ll be hilarious, but I also know it’ll come with a month of detention and I am not getting involved”.

“So you don’t care about Slytherin, then?” he asked, almost hopefully.

“Shut up Malfoy, you’re not baiting me into this one”. He rolled his eyes, but seemed almost good-natured about it all. “You’ve got Crabbe and Goyle, haven’t you?” 

“Yes,” he pouted, “but I want _more_!”

The day of the match, the second year Slytherins all piled into the Ravenclaw section of the Quidditch stands, and Katherine pointed across the pitch, where Rebecca was seated with a group of Hufflepuffs in the Gryffindor section. 

“Look at that, Tori!” she said, falsely bright. “Your best friend’s cheering for the wrong team!” Astoria sighed, because Rebecca seemed to always find a new way to make their newfound friendship just a little harder. Katherine was right; if Gryffindor won, it would be bad news for the Slytherin team, which is why they were all cheering for Ravenclaw.

“Hufflepuff’s cheering for Gryffindor, and she’s sitting with some of her friends. It’s not like she’s cheering against Slytherin”.

“Actually, it sort of is!” But before Astoria could respond, the entire stands gasped. Two Dementors were walking clumsily onto the pitch. She rolled her eyes at how blatantly fake it all looked, but apparently that was not as obvious to the rest of the school. Suddenly, there was a blast of white light from above the pitch, and Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, and Slytherin captain Marcus Flint were all crumpled on the ground. She suppressed the urge to laugh as everyone held their breath in terrified anticipation. It wasn’t funny, they could be severely hurt, but _Merlin_ was she glad she hadn’t helped out. 

**April, 1994**

They were sitting in the Slytherin common room, surrounded by career pamphlets. The time had come to pick third-year courses, and Astoria was trying to figure out which courses would get her into the Department of Mysteries. Becoming an Unspeakable was one of the few careers she had ever seriously considered, mainly because she wanted to be cool and mysterious. She did know a little about what they did, because there had been many Unspeakables in the history of her family. They studied love, and thought, and time, and death, and even though no one _really_ knew the exact nature of their job, Astoria wanted in. She figured she should take Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, but her friends were insisting on the importance of Divination. 

“If you want to learn about mysteries as a career, you have to take the most mysterious subject!” Rebecca told her. 

“Divination’s not real!” Astoria huffed. “You can predict the future perfectly well through Arithmancy, using calculations and other things that make sense”.

“Oh come on, you don’t believe in Divination?” Lydia said. “What about Cassandra Trelewaney? You think it was all a fluke?”

“Not to mention Edwyna Greengrass, you know, amongst the most celebrated Seers in history, and _your ancestor_ ,” Rebecca threw in.

“Okay, okay, _maybe_ a very select few people have the Sight, but that doesn’t mean taking a class will let you learn it. Isn’t it something you’re born with or you’re not?” 

“Well how would you ever know if you don’t take the class?” Astoria shook her head.

“You would definitely know”. But they were starting to win her over.

**May, 1994**

Astoria and her friends sat in the Common Room playing Exploding Snap, while Katherine sat nearby with her nose buried in a book.

“Oh come on, Kath,” Lydia said, “Just one round”. Katherine looked up, clearly annoyed.

“I’m busy. Please let me work in peace”.

“You’re always studying! I don’t understand, we have nothing due in the next three days!”

“Exams are coming up”.

“Not for an entire month!”  
“I intend to be top of the class this year”. 

“Coming for my crown, I see” Astoria joked.

“Yes”. Katherine said simply, and Astoria raised her eyebrows. “Nothing personal, Tori, but I plan on beating you in every exam”. Astoria stared at her. What she had intended to be a joke, or some minor, friendly competition, Katherine seemed to be taking very seriously. 

“We’ll see”. She said finally. Astoria could take a lot, but she wouldn’t lose. Of all of the intolerable things in the world, all the detentions and bad company and her father’s hexes slicing tiny cuts through her skin, losing was the most intolerable of them all. 

She started spending all her time at the library. She woke up and studied before breakfast, in between classes, after school while her friends hung out in the Common Room or by the Black Lake. She would not be outdone. She started to notice the students who studied the most. Hermione Granger could almost always be found at her window table, three fifth-year Ravenclaws always came between classes and dinner. And in the centre of things where Astoria liked to work, two desks down sat Draco Malfoy.

It was strange. Other than Italy, she had hardly ever seen him without Crabbe and Goyle, but there he was every day without fail, intensely focused on his books. She had never realized how much he cared about school. They would wave, or smile, at each other as one of them entered the library, but never spoke. Astoria was not studying to socialize, she was studying to win, and Draco seemed to share her mindset.

It was a sunny afternoon in mid-May, and she was doing her best to keep on topic, but her thoughts kept sliding away from Potions and over to the Black Lake, where most of her friends were relaxing and enjoying free time. Almost everyone else in the library were upper-years, studying for their O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s. Two Gryffindor boys who seemed to be preparing for O.W.L.s were at the table next to Astoria, talking at a volume that made her surprised and a little annoyed hadn’t been flagged by Madam Pince yet. She tried, and failed, to tune them out. 

“That little shit”. One whispered loudly. “That’s the one that’s getting Hagrid’s hippogriff executed”. Astoria wondered why so many Gryffindors seemed to have an inappropriately close relationship with the gamekeeper. 

“Monster deserves to die”. Draco muttered. Astoria felt it was a bad idea, but of course Draco Malfoy would never let an insult slide. 

“What was that?” One of the Gryffindors asked, and Draco looked up from his work.

“Oh, you heard me”. He drawled. “Hagrid’s beast was vicious and it was dangerous to bring it around students”. 

“Vicious and dangerous to students, so it needs to die, but having a Death Eater on the school board is totally okay”. Draco scowled.

“My father was under the Imperius Curse”. With a start, Astoria realized he fully believed it. He thought his father was innocent, even though everyone else in the Wizarding World knew the truth. 

“Your father loved You-Know-Who,” one of the boys said. “He’s an evil, slimy Muggle-hating killer. If anyone deserves to be executed it’s Lucius Malfoy, and your whole family with him”.

“Fucking hypocrites” Astoria thought, and then realized she had said it, loudly. They turned towards her.

“Who the hell are you?” Well, she had inserted herself into the conversation already.

“You think you’re so high and mighty, the picture of tolerance. You’d _never_ judge _anyone_ for their bloodline. Unless they’re a pureblood, and then we’re all fair game”. They glanced uneasily at each other, and Astoria thought she had made a really good point. But then one of them grinned.

“Why is a child talking to me?” They both laughed. Madam Pince stormed over, and Draco and Astoria each hurriedly looked down at their textbooks. 

“Out!” She cried shrilly. “Mr. Martin, Mr. Ayers, we have had this conversation too many times. If you cannot be quiet, then you must leave!”

“Sorry, Madam Pince,” one said. “We’ll be quiet”.

“No! You have burnt through thousands of second chances. Get out of my library!” The boys began to pack up their things, casting baneful looks at both Astoria and Draco. 

When they had left, Draco looked over at her.

“You didn’t have to get involved, Tori”. She shrugged.

“I know”.

  
  



	9. icarus puts on his wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm experimenting with quotes at the beginning of chapters (I went back and put them in the ones that have already been published), I'm assuming literally no one cares but I guess if you have any strong opinions on it let me know in the comments.
> 
> my favourite chapter so far, I think. I hope you guys like this one as much as I do.

_ “There’s beauty in the sinner before and after he got lost”-Matthew Good, Moving Walls (2020) _

**August, 1994**

Earlier that summer, Astoria had discovered that Rebecca had no plans to attend the Quidditch World Cup. Her mother worked for a Muggle university which meant, of course, that she couldn’t just take an indefinite amount of time off like the wizards attending. But Astoria felt that missing the event of the year could not be tolerated. She had convinced her parents to invite her through a mixture of lies (Rebecca’s mother had too important a job at MACUSA, the two of them had been talking about attending together all year), and the truth (Rebecca loved Quidditch, and her mother was an Abbot). And now, Rebecca was stepping out of the fireplace in Greengrass Manor.

Astoria was relieved that her friend had had enough Floo experience in her semi-muggleborn life to land easily. If her father had any suspicions that they were lying about Rebecca’s family history, then, frankly, they were both screwed. 

They took the Portkey, which was just down the road, and arrived at the campground where the entire Greengrass family looked helplessly at their tent.

“Here, I can do it”. Rebecca looked like she was trying not to laugh. She easily set up the tent, and Astoria’s father looked at her suspiciously.

“Why do you know how to do Muggle things?” Rebecca turned to Astoria, alarmed.

“She’s a halfblood. Remember, Dad, I told you about that”. Her father narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t seem to recall. Your mother’s a blood traitor then?” Rebecca looked rightfully uncomfortable.

“The whole situation is a bit different in America” She finally said, and Mr. Greengrass scoffed.

“Blood doesn’t change, girl”. She ducked her head.

“No sir, it does not”. 

“Okay!” Astoria stepped in. “Rebecca, Daphne and I are going to go explore. See you later”. She grabbed Rebecca’s arm and dragged her away. Rebecca looked between the sisters.

“Wow. Your dad is a real asshole”. Astoria was shocked. Rebecca approached everything with a trademark honesty, and she wasn’t exactly wrong, but she didn’t think the other girl would actually say it. Daphne started laughing, and Astoria hit her arm.

“Daph!” 

“What? She’s right! People should say it out loud more”. Rebecca seemed pleased, and Astoria was glad enough that they were getting along that she said nothing further on the subject. They wandered through the campground until Astoria saw a tall, familiar-looking boy.

“Vicente?” She called, and he turned around. He spotted her and grinned.

“Astoria Greengrass!” Vicente’s French was much better than his English, and so Astoria chatted with him for a few moments before realizing that a) she hadn’t introduced anyone and b) Rebecca couldn’t speak French. 

“Sorry!” She said. “Vicente, this my sister Daphne, and Rebecca McCall, my friend from Hogwarts”. 

“A pleasure to meet you!” He said. “Come, you must say hi to everyone!” He was dressed entirely in green, and on several occasions they almost lost him amongst the throngs of Ireland fans as they followed him to his tent. They stepped through the flap to enter a massive room, with both Bulgaria and Ireland decorations strung up. It seemed the Ferreiras couldn’t quite decide who they were supporting.

“Astoria?” It was Mateo Novak, dressed in green. He walked over to greet her. “How was your second year?” 

“Eventful, to say the least”. 

“I’ll guess. You’d never catch Dementors at Beauxbatons”.

“Well where’s the fun in that?”

“We seem to have very different ideas of fun”. It was Afonso. 

“Oh! Hi”. He grinned.

“Hey Tori. What team are you guys cheering for?” 

“Ireland”. Rebecca said, and Afonso gasped dramatically.

“Why would you root for the team that’s going to lose?” 

“Ireland doesn’t lose”. Rebecca said firmly.

“No, no, Victor Krum doesn’t lose. He is the best seeker in the world!”

“One great player’s no match for a great team”. 

“Are you willing to put money on it?”

“Definitely. Five galleons?” Astoria was a little annoyed. 

“I’ll put ten!” Afonso grinned.

“Good! Good! I will make a bet with both of you, and when this all ends I will be fifteen galleons richer”. They shook hands, and then left the tent in search of their friends from Hogwarts. 

The first one they found was Katherine, who had dressed herself in Muggle clothes surprisingly well. She greeted Astoria with enthusiasm, and Rebecca and Daphne with significantly less. 

“So?” She asked expectantly, “What were your results?”

“7 Outstandings!” Astoria told her proudly. “Perfect results. What about you?” Katherine pursed her lips. 

“One ‘E’, in Astronomy”. Astoria felt a surge of satisfaction at beating Katherine, but she didn’t let it show.

“That’s amazing!” Katherine rolled her eyes.

“Well, obviously not, given you have all ‘O’s”. She surveyed them. “You’re cheering for Ireland? Have you  _ seen  _ Victor Krum?” They laughed.

“I cheer for winners, not who’s best to look at”. Katherine shook her head lightheartedly.

“And that is where you go wrong”.

Later that evening, after meeting up with several Hogwarts students and buying a sufficient amount of Ireland merchandise, they headed down the trail to the stadium. They climbed several rows to their seats, amongst the best in the stadium.

About thirty seats down was the Top Box, where sat Cornelius Fudge and several officials Astoria couldn’t recognize. Also in the box were Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and a huge assortment of redheads that she assumed must be the entire Weasley family. She idly wondered how a family so poor as the Weasleys could afford such expensive seats, but wrote it off as favouritism for the Boy Who Lived, as always. There was a house elf, for some reason, and then the Malfoys. She had only met Lucius and Narcissa once or twice as a child, and they looked as proper and put-together as she imagined them. Mrs. Malfoy’s angel white strands which so contrasted with the other black hair gave Astoria a sudden urge to dye her hair in the same way. Next to them was Draco, in black dress robes with a red pin on his chest that she couldn’t read, but assumed must mean he was supporting Bulgaria. His hands were folded on his lap and he was sitting very calmly, but from the expression on his face it looked like he was trying very hard to control himself as such. To Astoria, he seemed like a little child, trying to earn an extra cookie. She caught his eye and waved. He nodded back.

Bulgaria fielded Veela as their mascot, and Astoria found herself drawn in by the mass of beautiful women with skin glowing like the moon, their blonde hair shimmering around them like halos. They danced around rhythmically, and she was on the edge of her seat, feeling as though she needed to join them, or steal a broom, or jump from her seat in order to get their attention. She was lost in their dance, and then just as quickly, they were gone, replaced by the leprechauns of Ireland. She relaxed back into her seat, where Rebecca and Daphne were giving her strange looks. Astoria shook her head and figured that her reaction to the Veela was something she was going to address later. Or, like, not at all. Maybe. 

The game was exhilarating! As much as Astoria loved Hogwarts Quidditch, watching Krum trick Lynch with Wronski Feints was so much more impressive than watching Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang float on their brooms waiting for the Snitch. And the skill of the Chasers! Incomparable. She didn’t see anyone drop the Quaffle once, even when struck with a Bludger.   
The entire walk back to their tent, she complained about how the match ended.

“It just doesn’t make  _ sense _ ” She said. “He wanted to end the match on his own terms, but it had only been a couple hours! Pro Quidditch games can go for weeks! So why end now, losing by only ten points? Why not wait and see if his team can score twenty more points, then catch the snitch and win? Why would he give up hope so early into the match?” Daphne laughed.

“Well, he may be the best seeker in the world, but he’s sure not the smartest”. 

“Neither is Lynch!” Rebecca added. “I get that the Wronski Feint is impressive, but how many times can you fall for the same trick?” An owl flew into the tent, dropping a short note.

_ Astoria, Rebecca: _

_ I believe I owe you money. We are having a celebratory/mourning party at our tent. Come collect your wagers and celebrate your undeserving victory with us. Bring as many friends as you like. _

She handed it off to Rebecca and Daphne to read, and they threw on sweaters and headed out into the night. On the way, they ran into Lydia, who, ever the Quidditch enthusiast, was chattering her thoughts about the game to anyone who’d listen. They dragged her along to Afonso’s tent. 

Astoria stepped in and immediately started grinning. All the Bulgaria decorations had been taken down, like there had never been any split loyalties at all, and the tent was full to the brim with young witches and wizards. There were several people she recognized from Hogwarts, including Katherine, plus dozens more that must have been the Ferreira brothers’ Beauxbatons classmates. A string quartet played by no one was floating in the corner, alternating between the Irish national anthem, different Irish folk songs, and instrumental versions of a few of the Weird Sisters’ greatest hits.

Lydia slipped off to join a group of people who were still animatedly discussing the match, while Daphne soon disappeared in pursuit of some cute French boy or other. Rebecca and Astoria joined in the merriment, talking and drinking and laughing, until a sight caught Astoria’s eye that was, frankly, pathetic. It was Draco Malfoy, holding a mug of butterbeer, sitting silently in the corner. He had removed his Bulgaria pin. She grabbed a flask of firewhiskey and a cup.   
“That sad about Bulgaria, hey?” He looked up at her.

“It’s not about that”. But Astoria was not to be deterred.

“Well, what’s up then? You’re at a party!” 

“Doesn’t matter”. She rolled her eyes.

“Then forget about it. You’re killing the mood”. She poured a hefty amount of firewhiskey into the cup and handed it to him expectantly. He snorted, but took the cup and drained it. 

“Good”. She did the same. “Now come on and enjoy yourself”. She grabbed his wrist and dragged him out to the centre of things, where several people were badly attempting an Irish jig. Astoria forced him into the circle, linking elbows and twirling around. The group was singing loudly, and they seemed to be making up both lyrics and dance moves as they went. Astoria joined in joyously, and Draco seemed to be slowly infected with enthusiasm. Off to the side, Afonso was holding his hands out to Rebecca.

“Care to dance?” She did a little mock curtsy.

“I’d be delighted”. Astoria’s face fell, and she saw that Draco had followed her gaze over to them. 

“You still fancy Afonso, I take it?” For some reason, she felt like she could be honest. After all, who was he going to tell? Crabbe and Goyle? 

“I don’t even really  _ like  _ him, I just, well, I sort of feel like I own him. Or something”. She added quickly, but he didn’t seem shocked, just looking at her with a neutral expression on his face.

“I know exactly what you mean”. Then he smirked, and shook his wand out of his sleeve, still dancing with her. “Itera!” He muttered, and before Astoria could process that he had just used the tripping jinx, Afonso and Rebecca fell to the ground. Around them, everyone laughed, and they sheepishly stood up and continued dancing cautiously.  “Draco!” Astoria admonished, because she felt like she had to, but she couldn’t keep herself from laughing. “They’re my friends!” 

“So?” He asked her. “They’re not hurt, are they?”

“I guess not, but-”

“ Everything in this life’s an exchange. If someone crosses you, you cross them, friend or not”. She laughed.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to treat others the way you want to be treated?”

“The inherent implication of that statement is that the people around you will treat you the way you treat them”.

“You’re crazy”.

“No, I’m right. You might not start fights, Tori, but you’ve got to finish them”. 

It wasn’t long before Astoria found herself exhausted. She found Daphne and Rebecca, both of whom seemed to share her sentiments, and together they trudged back out into the cold towards their tent. 

They were home for ten minutes, maybe fifteen minutes, when they heard the screaming. Astoria hadn’t even gotten changed yet- she had been brushing her hair and her teeth and drinking water to try and remedy her spinny head, and then there was a piercing shriek not far away. 

“Dad?” She called out. “Do you know what’s happening outside?” There was no response, but even more yelling outside. She grabbed her wand and nodded her head towards the door of the tent. “Let’s go check it out”. 

“Are you insane?” Daphne asked her. “Why would we run  _ towards  _ it?” 

“To find out what’s going on out there!” 

“No. I’m with Daphne on this one. It’s stupid to go looking for trouble”. Astoria sighed. They sat in the living room in nervous silence, listening to the panic outside. And then-

“Do you smell smoke?” 

“Yep. Oh my god, that’s really close, that’s- we need to go. Now”. Wands in hand, they scurried out of their tent, to see that their next-door neighbours tents were burning to the ground. Miraculously, though, whoever had set the fire seemed to have skipped their tent. The area looked like there had been a stampede of people running through, but most seemed to be across the campground now. 

“The woods!” Rebecca cried. “We should go to the woods!” They hurried through the mud, eventually slipping in near several other groups evacuating into the forest. Everyone ran in a loose group, paying close attention to their friends: holding hands or calling names out, terrified of losing each other. Everyone except a tall, pale boy standing at the edge of the forest with a somber expression on his face, watching the campground burn. 

“Draco!” Astoria cried, breaking away from Rebecca and Daphne to run over to him. “Come on, what are you doing?” He turned to her quizzically. 

“What are  _ you  _ afraid for?” 

“I-what do you mean? Someone is burning down the campground!” 

“They’re not going to hurt you. You’re pretty far removed from muggles, Greengrass”. 

“They’re targeting muggles?” He shrugged.

“And muggleborns”. She thought of her tent, unscathed while the rest burned. The Greengrass banner had been hanging from the outside. Had they skipped her because they saw the mark of a pureblood family? Had she been purposely spared?

“How do you know so much about this?” Draco didn’t respond. From this perspective, away from the main action, Astoria could pick out a group of wizards in dark hoods, laughing as they terrorized the campground. Suddenly, she understood.

“Is your father involved with this? Oh my god, is that what you were worried about earlier?” He looked away, and Astoria remembered how much he had insisted on his father’s innocence in the library. Perhaps he had had a rude awakening this summer. And speaking of rude awakenings… She bit her lip. “Is my father?” 

“Astoria. Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered”.

“Fuck,” she said. 

“Look, just go further into the forest and wait it out. I promise you’ll be fine”. 

“Astoria come  _ on _ !” Rebecca called, and Draco nodded his head her way.

“You better get that one out of here, though”. He was in some sort of deep, pondering melancholy, the reflection of the fires crackling in his light eyes. It seemed irresponsible to leave him alone, like he might do something unreasonable. 

“Come with us,” She said. “You don’t have to watch this, Draco”. He finally turned away from the carnage to look at her.

“I want to”. 

So Astoria left. It felt like something tragic had just happened, like she had just passed some sort of crossroads she didn’t understand. It reminded her of a muggle story a nanny had once told her about, before promptly being fired, of a boy whose father made him wings, whose recklessness had him killed. She couldn’t quite explain the burning in her throat, but she felt like she was watching him strap on his wings and jump from the tower. He was going to destroy himself eventually, and she had just seen the beginning.

Sometimes, she wanted to burn too. Sometimes, she wanted to stop it with the clubs and the studying and the needing to be the best at everything all the time and just collapse. In astronomy they had talked about how stars explode into supernovas. She thought that might be a beautiful way to go out. Her father was out there, torturing people. Didn’t she have just as much of a right to self-destruct because of it?

They sat in a large group of people for a while, Astoria in total silence, pondering the events of the last hour, until more screaming caused her to look up. 

The Dark Mark. The mark of You-Know-Who, death wrapped in a green snake. Slowly, she looked down at her sweater, home-knitted by her House Elf, Slytherin green with a snake embroidered over the heart. For the first time, Astoria Greengrass understood why people were afraid of her. 

  
  



	10. the first vision

_“Now here I go again/I see the crystal visions/I keep my visions to myself/It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams/_

_And have you any dreams you'd like to sell?”-Fleetwood Mac, Dreams (1977)_

**September, 1994**

Mad-Eye Moody, the famous Auror, was shaking hands with Dumbledore. Astoria shuddered slightly, glancing at Daphne. Mad-Eye had been the monster of their bedtime stories as children. He was ruthless, angry and powerful, the perfect villain. Now, in real life, his face was just as horribly scarred as she imagined, and his vibrant blue false eye even more terrible. He trudged down to the staff table, and Astoria took a sharp intake of air. He couldn’t be a professor, could he? 

The monster pulled a plate of sausages towards him, pulled a knife out of his pocket, and began to eat off the blade. That one, awful blue eye was still darting around the Great Hall. Once or twice, she was sure it rested on her in recognition. Dumbledore smiled benignly, like he hadn’t just welcomed the most terrifying wizard in the world into their home.

“May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher,” he said cheerily, “Professor Moody”. No one applauded, just stared at Moody, who was now indifferently drinking out of his hip flask.

“What d’ya think he’s drinking?” Katherine asked.

“Well I’ll tell you right now it’s not Butterbeer”. Astoria was too horrified to speak.

“As I was saying,” Dumbledore continued, “we are to have the honour of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event which has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year”.

“You’re JOKING!” Yelled someone from the Gryffindor table.

“I am not joking, Mr. Weasly, though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar-”. Professor McGonagall cleared her throat, and Astoria was filled with a surge of respect for the woman so terrifying she could keep Dumbledore himself in line. He returned back on topic, giving a brief of what the Tournament was, and Astoria turned to her friends.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“Holy shit,” Katherine agreed. 

“We _have_ to try and become the Hogwarts champion” Lydia said. “How do you think they choose it? Is there an election? Some kind of selection committee?”

“I have no idea” 

“We’re young, we’d need to prove to them we’re good enough…” Lydia seemed to be deep in thought. “We need to pick one champion and launch an all out campaign”.

“Me, hopefully” Draco Malfoy said from several seats down the table. 

“Oh!” Lydia said, “I was more thinking Katherine or Astoria…” Tori looked at Draco.

“Do you just listen to all our conversations?”

“Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts,” Dumbledore was saying, “The Heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age – that is to say, seventeen years or older – will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration”.

“What!” Astoria cried, along with dozens of other students. Dumbledore raised his voice and continued. 

“This is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the Tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion”. He looked over to the Gryffindor table, like they were the only students who wanted to be champion. “I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen”. 

“No,” said Astoria to her friends, eyes dark and determined. “We’re getting our names considered”. Around the table, the other Slytherins nodded seriously.

Their first class of the school year was Divination. Astoria, Rebecca, and Lydia climbed the many stairs and then, seconds away from being late, seated themselves around a small table. But the professor did not emerge. For several minutes, the class waited in restless anticipation, and just as they were beginning to wonder if they had somehow collectively mistaken the classroom, a thin, tall woman with very large glasses stepped from behind a curtain of beads. There was a glittering shawl draped around her shoulders, and heaps sparkling jewelry hanging from every limb. The woman looked like a rather shabby imitation of the night sky

“I am Professor Trelewaney. Welcome,” she said softly, “to Divination. This is the most complex and difficult of all the magical disciplines, and I congratulate you on your initiative to take this course. But I warn you, if you are not naturally gifted with the Sight, there will be very little I am able to teach you” Astoria glanced back and forth between her friends with a delighted expression.

“I told you so!” she hissed, and Trelewaney looked up. 

“Pardon me?” she said, and Astoria stayed silent, hoping the professor hadn’t seen who had spoken. It was a good guess, because she shrugged and continued. “ Divination is extraordinarily difficult, but it can be a beautiful, rewarding process. However, for those of you who are gifted, the fates have aligned to bring you here into my classroom. If you are a Seer, you have just come home. Everything is right in the universe”. She paused, clasping her hands together, and smiling around the classroom. “Is there anyone who feels this way, as if the stars have aligned?” Several students snickered and everyone looked around, amused, wondering if anyone was taking this seriously. 

A group of Ravenclaw boys at the back of the clas, whispering between each other pushed the centre boy to raise his hand as, hiding smiles, Astoria and one Hufflepuff girl did the same. There were smirks on most students’ faces, as the class collectively shared a joke at the expense of their teacher, who obliviously gasped in delight and looked to the Ravenclaw boy. 

“Oh my dear, I admire your enthusiasm. Only time will tell if you are a true Seer”. She walked up a few stairs and smiled at the Hufflepuff girl. “ _You_ are most certainly gifted. I will watch your progression with great interest”. The girl and her friends nodded seriously, and as Trelewaney turned away and moved towards Astoria, one whispered something and they collapsed into silent laughter. Astoria, hand still raised, was focusing on maintaining a neutral expression, and didn’t dare make eye contact with Lydia in the hopes of keeping control.

Professor Trelewaney tilted her head to stare at Astoria. She drew in very, very close, and cupped Astoria’s face with both hands, tilting her neck upwards at an entirely uncomfortable angle. Astoria was quickly regretting participating in this particular joke. 

“My dear, there is something ancient in your blood”. 

“Yea, she’s a Greengrass” Lydia said, to no response.

“Something dark and evil!” Trelewaney trilled, eyes wild.

“Yea, she’s a Greengrass” A Gryffindor echoed Lydia. “There’s the ancient evil”. In her peripheral vision (her face was still being held inches from the professor’s), Astoria registered Lydia whipping around, and whatever she must have mouthed quickly put an end to the snickers. Trelewaney ignored everything around her except Astoria. 

“It’s corrupting, it’s powerful. It’s full of hatred. It’s going to rot you from the inside out. And-” She sighed tragically. “Oh my dear, one day it’s going to kill you. You’re going to die a young, painful death”. The bright, amused energy that had hung in the room seemed immediately darkened- the students were quiet, tense, even. Trelewaney abruptly tuned from Astoria and walked back to the centre of the room. “Now!” She said brightly, “If you could turn to chapter three of your textbooks, our first unit will be on dream interpretation”.

Astoria numbly flipped the pages. Divination had all felt like some big joke, but it was hard to laugh at a complete stranger telling her something she already halfway believed about herself. Her father was a Death Eater, and she had never known it. That beautiful sacred Greengrass blood was anciently corrupting and it was going to rot her from the inside out.

Later that day, Astoria stood outside the Great Hall with the other third-years, waiting for dinner. She half-heartedly paid attention as Draco chose to provoke Harry Potter and his friends yet again. His frequent spats with Gryffindors, while mildly amusing, occurred so often that she generally ignored them. But it was the first altercation of the year, and she needed _something_ to distract her, and now they were saying things about each other’s mothers--how original--and oh my god, Draco was pulling out his wand. He sent some hex or other at Potter, but before Astoria could even begin to excitedly clear the area for a duel, Mad-Eye Moody was storming in. There was a loud BANG, and it took her several seconds to process that where Draco had just been standing was now a pure white rodent. 

“OH NO YOU DON’T, LADDIE!” There was absolute silence in the Entrance Hall. Astoria felt very close to passing out. The world seemed to move very slowly around her, everyone swimming through the ringing in her ears. Draco was a ferret. Mad-Eye Moody was in Hogwarts and he had turned Draco into a ferret. Ferret. Moody. Hogwarts. Maybe this was just a very bad dream. Maybe she was about to wake up. She blinked stupidly. Katherine was gesturing something to Crabbe and Goyle, between them and the ferret.The ferret. Draco. Moody. Crabbe nodded and reached down to scoop up the rodent.

“LEAVE IT!” Moody screamed, and Astoria flinched. As Crabbe froze, she noticed the burning in her throat and realized she was perilously close to tears. The ferret that was Draco soared ten feet into the air and then slammed back onto the ground. He-or it-was squealing in pain, but Moody just kept throwing him in the air. Rat-Draco was being tortured. Moody was a monster. Astoria felt her chest tightening, like someone had just sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Moody was a monster just like she had been warned and now he was going to murder Draco and they were going to have to bury a ferret. 

“Professor Moody!” It was Professor McGonagall, storming into the Entrance Hall. Astoria took a deep breath. McGonagall was here. McGonagall was here and might Draco complain that she hated him but she was Minerva McGonagall and she would not allow a student to be murdered. 

No one saw Draco for several hours after the ferret incident, and the Slytherins sat together in their common room, waiting and wondering. Presumably to pass the time, Rebecca and Lydia began to tell the story of their first Divination lesson, and Trelewaney’s comments about Astoria’s ‘ancient and evil’ blood. Astoria stared into the fire. She didn’t feel much like discussing Moody, the villain of her every nightmare, but a conversation about her genetic predisposition to evil was not a friendly topic either. 

“It was awful! You can’t just say that to a student, it was completely inappropriate,” Rebecca was saying angrily, “you can’t just call a thirteen year old evil because they’re a pureblood in Slytherin”.

“Right?” Lydia exclaimed. “I mean you’d get in trouble for telling a mudblood their heritage is disgusting and they belong to a lineage of failure, even though it would be the truth! But you can tell purebloods they’re inherently evil and that’s okay? It’s discriminatory!”  
“Wow,” Rebecca gaped at her. “You really just jumped straight to racism, hey? The point was _so_ much more compelling without you associating it with blood supremacy”. Lydia rolled her eyes.

“Whatever. The point is it was completely out of line”. Rebecca muttered something- Astoria chose not to listen- and then Lydia snapped back “what the fuck did you just say?” (far too loudly to not register), and the two, so recently allies, embarked on yet another heated argument. Astoria stayed quiet. She had had an entirely traumatizing day: first, there had been the Divination incident, and then she had to go to Defence Against the Dark Arts and come face-to-face with the nightmare of her childhood. Then he had transfigured her friend into an animal and tortured him.She didn’t need to get in the middle of a dispute between her two friends who hated each other. Blaise Zabini shrugged. 

“Well don’t worry about the early death at least. She says that every year”. The prediction of her early death had completely escaped Astoria’s mind, but she nodded in thanks, and he seemed to take it as his cue to move on. “Have you guys had Moody yet?” He asked excitedly. Ugh. Astoria had spent his class in the very back corner, trying not to be called on. And why was Zabini so enthused after everything that just happened? How sadistic could he be?

“Yeah, we had him last” Katherine said. “He was pretty intense, but I never could have seen that coming with Draco”

“Wonder what else he’d do”. Astoria really couldn’t take the discussion of Moody anymore, so she stood up abruptly.

“I’m going to bed” Pansy gave her a strange look.

“It’s eight o’clock” Astoria shrugged.

“I’m tired,” She said, trying to convey a note of finality to her tone.

“Don’t forget your mugwort” Rebecca reminded her, tearing her attention from Lydia. Mugwort-to be brewed in a tea and drunk before bed every night for a week, as per their first Divination assignment. Meant to enhance psychic powers, Mugwort was stronger plainly ingested and strongest inhaled, but as beginners, they were to drink it as tea. Then, they were to record their dreams in order to analyze them later in class. Astoria couldn’t believe she had let Lydia and Rebecca drag her in to such a stupid class. She nodded, and then went down the girls hallway to brew her stupid tea. 

That night, she dreamt of Mad-Eye Moody, with his monstrous scarred face and bulging fake eyeball. A long, red line began to stretch down his face, blood pooling from it, as each half of his face fell to the side. As Mad-Eye’s face fell apart, she saw a younger man standing beneath, covered in blood and dirt, a wild, haunting look in his eyes as he grinned maniacally. Before she could scream, McGonagall arrived on the scene, shooting a jet of red light at the man’s chest, who fell to the ground next to Moody’s body in a pool of blood. Frozen in place, Astoria stared at the carnage for what seemed like hours, until she turned to the side, and was suddenly elsewhere, lying in flowery meadow and staring at the sky. 

_Great_ , she thought when she woke up, _now I’m having nightmares about Moody again like I’m a little kid._

As the week went on, she tried to turn her mind away from thoughts about her destiny, and whether she was fated to succumb to cruelty. She distracted herself with homework for every other class, and more frequently, friendly games of Quidditch, wizard’s chess and Exploding Snap. By the time she drifted off to sleep Friday night, she had almost forgotten about it all. 

She dreamt, like she had been recently, of Mad-Eye Moody. His terrible scarred face would split right in half, revealing the other man, dirty and sweaty, with feral eyes that seemed to shake with evil. Then someone would come and shoot a spell at him, Dumbledore or McGonagall or even Snape once. Tonight it was Dumbledore, and the man inside of Moody collapsed. The two bodies slumped down together in a pool of blood.

It was disgusting. But after dreaming the same image for four days, Astoria was unaffected. She just waited for the scene to move onto pleasanter things, like the dream she had had yesterday about a lazy afternoon on a beach that, while not Katherine’s house in Italy, was clearly on an island in the area. 

But instead, she was just standing in the clocktower courtyard, watching seasons pass. After a while, the stones crumbled. She could smell fire, so she willed herself to run, and even though she was running away she somehow ended up back in the castle, in the Transfiguration hallway. Individuals, some of whom looked the age of older Hogwarts students, some fully grown adults, were throwing hexes and curses back and forth. She jumped behind statues and tapestries, making her way to the entrance hall. There, it was anarchy. It seemed like every witch and wizard in Britain was somewhere in Hogwarts, all at battle with each other. And around her, they were dying like fleas. 

Astoria awoke to Olivia shaking her. All of her other dormmates were crowded around her bed. 

“Are you okay?” Rebecca asked. 

“Hogwarts!” She gasped, trying to convey the horror of what she had seen. “War! It’s- Hogwarts… Hogwarts is-death!” 

“Merlin, will you shut up!” Katherine cried. “It’s three in the morning. You had a nightmare. Now go back to sleep”. The other girls dissipated, although they still looked concerned. Astoria lay back down motionless, too afraid to close her eyes. She could feel her heartbeat, pulsating through her body. 

Eventually, either very late at night or very early in the morning she slipped down to the common room. Half-heartedly, she attempted to work on an essay and waited, in silence, until students slowly began to fill the Common Room. The first of her friends to wake up was Rebecca, and they headed down to breakfast together. 

“Tori,” Rebecca said very seriously. “I think you have the Sight”. 

“What!?” 

“Think about it! Mugwort is supposed to enhance your psychic abilities, right? And when was the last time you had a nightmare?” Astoria considered. It could make some sense: the timing was all right, and there was Edwyna Greengrass, not to mention several other lesser Seers in her family. She shuddered, thinking of the burning castle. 

“If what I saw was a prophetic vision, we’re doomed”.

  
  



	11. the holy grail

_ “There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable”-Mark Twain, in his personal notebook (date unknown) _

**October, 1994**

The arrival of the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang came with much excitement. Classes ended half an hour early, which was in itself a bonus, and the Slytherins all gathered in the Common Room, where Professor Snape stood, surveying them. 

“Mr. Woodwork,” He said, slowly and coldly, in a tone usually only reserved for Gryffindors. “There is dirt all over your face”. A small first-year boy squealed slightly, and then ran to the dormitories. Snape pointed at Goyle. “Straighten your tie”. He continued looking at all the students, moving past Astoria and her friends to round on a sixth-year girl. “Miss Blueheart, you will wear an appropriately length skirt or you will not leave this common room. We will not have this conversation again”. 

The girl huffed slightly and unrolled her skirt. Snape corrected several other students, gave a short and unemotional speech about representing Hogwarts, Slytherin, and their families, and then they walked in an orderly fashion to the front of the school. On the stairs, they aligned themselves by year, lining up next to the Hufflepuffs who had already arrived. Eventually, the rest of the school filed in, and they all stood together in apprehension. 

Finally, Astoria spotted something massive soaring across the sky, getting larger every second.

“It’s a dragon!” Someone yelled.

“Don’t be stupid… it’s a flying house!” responded a Gryffindor first-year. 

“Idiots” Pansy Parkinson muttered from the row behind Astoria, who turned around.

“What do you think it is?” She sighed.

“My father says the headmistress of Beauxbatons always travels by carriage, pulled by a team of Abraxans”. It soon became clear that Pansy was right; the carriage slammed back onto the ground, causing a Gryffindor to jump backwards onto a fifth-year Slytherin’s foot. The fifth-year boys shoved the Gryffindor back into his row with more force than was strictly necessary. The door to the carriage opened, and Astoria recognized Vicente Ferreira, dressed in pale blue robes,as he jumped to the ground. He unfolded a set of golden stairs and then leaped back. 

Vicente was soon obscured by the largest woman Astoria had ever seen- tall and hulking, the only comparison she could draw to was Professor Hagrid. Everyone applauded, and so Astoria joined in, slightly reluctantly as with, she noticed, many other Slytherins. 

“My dear Madame Maxime,” Dumbledore said, “Welcome to Hogwarts”. Astoria heard Pansy choke behind her.

“That’s the headmistress” she whispered. “Holy shit, their headmistress is a half-breed”

“I’d say the Hogwarts champion doesn’t need to be too worried, if that’s who’s teaching them” said a sixth-year, and there were murmurs of agreement. 

“Shut up O’Connor” said a Gryffindor in his year, someone Astoria recognized from Quidditch. Her last name was Spinnet… oh well, it really didn’t matter. The Hogwarts students parted across the middle- Hufflepuffs and Slytherins on one side, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws on the other- in order to let the Beauxbatons students through. Vicente waved to Rowena Rowle, who was now in seventh year. 

Then, a great whirlpool appeared in the lake. Draco’s eyes sparkled.

“Durmstrang” he said, and an enormous ship emerged from the depths of the Black Lake. There was the splash of an anchor, the unfolding of a plank, and about a dozen students walked up to the school, all dressed in piles of fur. Amongst them was Victor Krum. 

They followed the Durmstrang students into the school, and then seated themselves at the Slytherin table. The Beauxbatons students, apparently led by Vicente on his way to hang out with Rowena, all sat down with the Ravenclaws, and to the Slytherins’ delight the Durmstrang students soon settled themselves at their table. Draco, with a calm, welcoming smile that Astoria knew was hiding childlike delight, extended his hand to Krum. 

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” He said, “I’m Draco Malfoy”. The Quidditch star took his hand. 

“Victor Krum. This is Brit Heikkinen and Lars Agner”. Draco shook hands with the girl sitting next to him and the boy across from him, in between Krum and Astoria. 

“I’m Astoria Greengrass” she said, shaking hands with Lars next to her. 

“So, Viktor, about Durmstrang, I’ve always wondered…” Draco was doing a perfect job of not treating Krum like a celebrity in order to become friends with him, but he focused his attention entirely on the Quidditch player. In smiling at this, Astoria accidentally met eyes with Lars. 

“Everyone we meet does this,” He said to her, “Fawning over the great Viktor Krum, even when they are pretending not to” Astoria laughed lightly. 

“And Draco does this to everyone with influence, in case they could be an asset”. Lars smiled.

Dumbledore took the stand. "The moment has come," said Dumbledore, smiling around at the sea of upturned faces. "The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. But first, let me introduce, for those who do not know them, Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation" - there was a smattering of polite applause - "and Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports." The applause was much louder- Ludo Bagman had once been a Beater and they now had two famous Quidditch players in their Great Hall. “Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament," Dumbledore continued, "and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime on the panel that will judge the champions' efforts." 

When he said champions, everyone leaned forwards, including the Durmstrang students. Dumbledore smiled and said, "The casket, then, if you please, Mr. Filch”. Filch came hobbling in, carrying with him an ornate chest of dark wood and rubies.

"The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman," said Dumbledore as Filch placed the chest carefully on the table before him, "and they have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways.. their magical prowess - their daring - their powers of deduction - and, of course, their ability to cope with danger." The students were absolutely silent, hanging on to every word. "As you know, three champions compete in the tournament," Dumbledore went on calmly, "one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the Tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire."

Dumbledore tapped his wand onto the chest and it unfolded on itself, revealing a silver cup, dancing with flames. 

“All we have to do is get our name is the cup” Astoria whispered, and Lars turned to her.

“You are thinking of entering?”

“I’m not seventeen yet,” she said, “but if the cups’s magically binding…” 

“You get through the age line, and it picks you-”

“There’s nothing they can do”. Lars nodded. 

“I admire your confidence, Astoria Greengrass. Good luck”. 

It didn’t seem like there was any way. A couple Weasleys tried aging potion and were charmed to look old. She woke up early and tried to use Wingardium Leviosa, but the paper burned up as soon as it crossed the age line. She even screwed up the courage to ask her prefect to put her name in, and he just laughed at her and told her there was no way in hell. 

When they gathered again in the Great Hall, Astoria’s name was not in the cup. She was absolutely certain, however, that if it had been, she would have been chosen, and she told Lars so. He laughed.

“Well, I would say the same about myself, except then it will be very embarrassing when the Cup chooses Viktor”. 

“How do you know it’ll be him?” Astoria asked, and he shrugged.

“There has been nothing in our entire lives that Viktor has not been chosen for. We are all just here as a formality”. The flames in the goblet turned red, and shot out a burnt piece of parchment, which Dumbledore caught.

“The champion for Durmstrang,” He said, “Is Viktor Krum”. There was a round of thunderous applause, slapping of Krum on the back, and then, when he got up and left, Lars turned back to Astoria.

“Every time”. He said, sounding less bitter than just resigned. 

“The champion for Beauxbatons,” called Dumbleore, “Is Fleur Delacour”. At the Ravenclaw table, the rest of the Beauxbatons students looked devastated, although a few, including Vicente, were holding themselves together enough to cheer for their champion. Next to him were two girls sobbing. 

“Come  _ on _ ,” said Astoria, “At least try to pretend you’re happy for your friend”. Lars said something back to her, but she completely missed it, because rising from the Ravenclaw table, in a cloud of silvery hair, was the most beautiful girl Astoria had ever seen. She walked primly up to the front, and then into the side chamber, with a graceful gait that rather made her seem as though she was floating. The goblet turned red again, and the third champion was drawn.

“The champion for Hogwarts,” Dumbledore called out, and the energy in the hall was electric, “is Cedric Diggory!” There was an explosion of noise from the Hufflepuff table, who were all out of their seats celebrating. Astoria felt a surge of disappointment that their Hogwarts champion was just some Hufflepuff, when Durmstrang got the world’s greatest Seeker and Beauxbatons got Fleur Delacour, who must be the most beautiful woman in the world. But she looked over to the Gryffindor table and saw that they were all applauding only politely, and so she began to cheer with enthusiasm.

As Diggory made his way into the side chamber, Astoria wondered idly who she ought to cheer for- Fleur, who had this incredible magnetism to her, Krum, the Quidditch star, or if her school loyalties would win out. She was soon distracted from this line of thought by the abrupt stop in Dumbledore’s speech. The goblet of fire had turned red again, and was now spewing a fourth piece of parchment. Dumbledore unfurled it slowly.

“Harry Potter” He said, and Astoria felt the sudden urge to riot.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” said an older Slytherin, and there were angry calls of agreement.

“A second Hogwarts champion?” Lars sounded bewildered and upset. “It’s completely unfair!” 

“ _ Hogwarts _ didn’t do this” Astoria said, even angrier. “Harry Potter would do anything for attention. Now he’s found some way to derail an ancient international tournament just because he couldn’t be the star of it”.

“Isn’t he a hero?” Astoria’s blood was boiling.

“He loves to have people say it. But every year he breaks the rules and puts us all in danger just to  _ make  _ himself the hero, and he’s never punished for it. And look at the Gryffindors,” she said venomously. “They’re ecstatic. They think this is the greatest thing anyone’s ever done”. She was right- while everyone else was upset, or at least confused, the Gryffindors seemed delighted. 

She was furious, not just for herself or for the other schools, who only got one champion, but also, she realized, on behalf of Cedric Diggory. He had entered the right way, he had been chosen as the most worthy of any student in Hogwarts. He deserved all of what Potter had just stolen half of. She hoped with everything she had that Cedric Diggory won, and Harry Potter came dead last. 

  
  



	12. Pandora's box

_“We know what we are, but know not what/we may be”-William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1603)_

**November, 1994**

As classes continued, it became clear that, much to her chagrin, Astoria had an uncanny knack for Divination. In tea leaves, she was able to easily identify the shapes that, to others, just looked like formless blobs. If she concentrated on the orb long enough, she really could see the outlines of figures. It annoyed her to no end. 

Rebecca and Lydia were convinced she was a Seer, and was just now ‘unlocking her Inner Eye’. As much as Astoria hated that entire concept, and hated that they might be right, the possibility seemed more and more real.

“If you’re a Seer, you can’t just ignore that!”

“Why not!?”

“Because, Tori, there are only a few true Seers every century! You have a responsibility to at least pursue this!”

Astoria was about to retort, but Hannah Abbot was walking over to the Slytherin table, holding a basket. She sat down next to Rebecca and gave her a trepid smile. Everyone was staring at her, and she gave Daphne a shy wave, then reached into the basket. It was a badge that read ‘Support Cedric Diggory- the REAL Hogwarts Champion’

“I thought you guys might want these, you know, to cheer on Cedric” 

“Hannah,” Astoria said, and the Hufflepuff turned to her looking a little frightened, “There is literally nothing I would rather wear” Hannah gave out a relieved smile, and Astoria and Rebecca each pinned one onto their robes. 

“I want one!” Said a fifth year, a few seats away.

“Oh! Okay!” She slid a badge down, but soon the entire Slytherin table was clamouring for a badge, and Hannah was clutching them to her chest. “Oh, well, I don’t really have that many…”

“Okay enough!” Astoria called out. She had no idea when she had decided she had the authority to do so- she was only a third year, and trying to control a group of excited Slytherins was not something anyone but the most popular upper-year could usually do. But for some reason, maybe because they were shocked at her sheer audacity, everybody backed up. “Hannah doesn’t have enough for everyone. We are going to go make more ourselves, and then everybody can have a badge, okay?” 

Astoria was making badges by hand, slowly and painstakingly, while Rebecca poured through books trying to figure out a replication spell. Draco, who had been elated by the badges when they arrived in the Common Room, ran over and pulled a freshly-finished badge out of her hands.

“Hey! Be careful with that!” But he ran away without a word. Astoria and Rebecca both just rolled their eyes and kept on working. 

“Yes!” Draco cried, and then jubilantly held the badge up to them. It looked exactly the same.

“Are you feeling okay?” Astoria asked, but then he pressed down on the badge and it morphed so that it said “Potter Stinks” in green ink. 

“Everyone needs to wear these!” She had scarcely seen him so happy. “How many have you made?” She sighed.

“Including that one, six”.

“No. Not good enough”. She scoffed.

“Why don’t you make them yourself then?”

“I can do better than that”. 

Within half an hour, Draco had organized an entire assembly line of thirty or so students, mostly Slytherins but the odd Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. It took them a short amount of time to manufacture enough badges for the entire school to wear. You had to hand it to Draco; he might be kind of crazy, but he got stuff done.

He recruited Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs to distribute badges to their houses, and the next morning it seemed like nearly every student in Hogwarts was wearing a Support Cedric Diggory/Potter Stinks badge. At breakfast, they surveyed the Great Hall with satisfaction. 

“He’s going to lose it when he sees this,” Draco said, “It’ll completely throw him off his game”. He finished his meal and headed to Potions, where he wanted to be early because he knew he’d see Potter. Astoria continued to eat alone, until Lydia and Rebecca walked into the Great Hall together, strangely unified.

It was disconcerting. They both had these odd, satisfied expressions on their face, and they were walking together, no hint of argument or disagreement. They each slipped in on either side of Astoria, who looked at them warily. Lydia placed a satin bag on the table in front of her.

“Mugwort,” said Rebecca proudly. 

“I’ve already tried Mugwort” she said, and Lydia shook her head.

“We drank it steeped. Trelewaney said it’s strongest inhaled, and that’s what you’re going to do”. Astoria stared at her.

“Excuse me?” 

“Next Hogsmeade weekend, we’re going to the forest, and you’re going to smoke Mugwort”.

“That’s insane!” 

“That’s what makes it so brilliant!” Astoria sighed.

“If I do this, will it get you guys off my back?” Lydia and Rebecca seemed to have a silent exchange. When had they gotten to know each other enough to do  _ that _ ? 

“Sure. Smoke the mugwort, find out whether you’re a Seer or not. From then on out, it’s up to you”. 

“Fine. But we’re bringing Daphne, and nobody else ever knows or finds out about this. Not even Katherine-no one”.

“Okay, deal”. 

That weekend, they headed into Hogsmeade, slipping out as early as possible to avoid having to meet up with other students. They stopped by the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer, to calm Astoria’s nerves ( “Oh my, starting early, are we?” said Madam Rosmerta) and then headed out to the forest just as other students started to arrive. They sat down in a little circle, and Daphne pulled out her wand. 

“Incendio minima!” she said, and the tip of her wand glowed with a tiny, useless flame. “Oh, shit, sorry,” she put the flame out. “Incendio!” This time there was a massive jet of fire. Everyone jumped back. Lydia sighed and pulled out her own wand.   
“Incendio minima!” A perfectly sized flame flickered from the tip of her wand, and she used it to easily light the Mugwort. Daphne stuffed her wand in her robes, looking slightly embarrassed. 

“Alright Tori,” said Lydia, passing her the Mugwort. “This is it”. Astoria brought it to her lips. She didn’t feel any different, except that her lungs were burning. She inhaled again, and this time it caused a fit of violent coughing, but still no magical prophecy. She had several more hits, to no avail, and then after the final one she felt a slight swaying in her head, for just a split second, and then everything was normal. She put out the smoldering mugwort.

“Well,” Astoria said, “That was pointless”. Lydia, Rebecca, and Daphne all stared at her open-mouthed. “What?” She asked, and Lydia wordlessly flipped around a sheet of parchment. She had scrawled something on it, very messily, and Astoria squinted to read it.

_ Through water deep and fire’s breath, _

_ The final task brings birth and death. _

_ The king of snakes and skulls awaits. _

_ The spare will fall _

_ Or crumble into all he hates. _

“What the hell is that?” 

“ _ You  _ said that!” Daphne said. “Your eyes went all dark and your voice got weird and you said that!” 

“No,” Astoria said, suddenly aware of how light headed she felt, “I’m pretty sure I would remember saying that”.

“What?” asked Lydia, “You think we planned this just to screw with you?”

“Starting to seem likely!”

“I wouldn’t lie to you about this,” Daphne said seriously, and Astoria knew that she wouldn’t.

“Astoria, you issued a prophecy!” cried Rebecca. “We have to ask Trelawney about it” She laughed derisively. 

“You’re joking, right? Trelawney doesn’t know anything about real prophecies”

“So what do we do about it?”

“Nothing,” Astoria said, shaken. “We do nothing, and we say nothing, and we tell no one”.

  
  



	13. survival of the fittest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of finals & final papers coming up so there will not be a chapter next two weeks. I will be updating again on December 20 :)

_ “Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has”– Anita Brookner, A Misalliance (1986) _

Hogwarts was abuzz with rumours of what challenge the champions might first have to face, and even more so, which champion would win. Viktor Krum was idolized by many of the students, but nobody seemed to be under the impression that he was all that smart. Fleur Delacour, in most people’s opinions, was too pretty to be powerful. Nice to look at, not going to win. Harry Potter had defeated You-Know-Who, and, in the last three years, duelled Sirius Black, killed the Basilisk, and gotten through Dumbledore’s protections to duel Quirrell for the Philosopher’s Stone. Most students, even the ones who proudly and vehemently wore their ‘Potter Stinks’ badges, were resigned to the possibility that Potter might win. 

Astoria had her money on Cedric. Quite literally, she was currently placing a bet of fifty galleons on Cedric against Vicente Ferreira.

“Cedric Diggory,” she said, “is the best wizard at Hogwarts. He’s been top of his class every year, he’s a great Seeker, and he’s going to be the Triwizard Champion”. Vicente shook his head.

“Do  _ not  _ underestimate Fleur Delacour. We’ve been going to school together our whole lives, and there have been a lot of people who’ve written her off as just another pretty face. But she’s smart, and she’s powerful, and she’s proven every single one of them wrong”. Astoria looked across the Great Hall at Fleur, her beautiful face scrunched in concentration as she leaned over a book, and felt a surge of respect and adoration. “I might wish it was me, and she might be competing against Viktor Krum and Harry Potter, but there’s no universe in which I wouldn’t bet on Fleur”. For a moment, Astoria wondered why she too wasn’t betting on Fleur. Quickly, she looked away from the Beauxbatons champion and felt her head clear. 

“Of course she’s powerful, she was chosen as champion. But Cedric is going to beat her”. Vicente snorted.

“We’ll see”

“I guess we will”.

The 24th of November, the students pulled on their winter cloaks and headed down to the stadium, which had been constructed for the first time. On their way down, Astoria spotted several Beauxbatons students with Hogwarts cloaks over their blue uniforms, apparently having been in Scotland long enough to learn how to dress for the weather. The Slytherins crammed themselves in one section, each wearing their “Potter Stinks” pins. Most had consented to putting on Hufflepuff-coloured face paint, and a sixth-year girl had even managed to find a yellow and black hijab for the occasion. 

After what seemed like an absurdly long wait time, Ludo Bagman took to the stands, his voice magically amplified. 

“The first challenge,” he announced as the crowds hushed, “is a test of daring and ingenuity. The champions must retrieve a golden egg”- he gestured grandly to the ground, where, if Astoria squinted, she could make out a single large golden egg amongst the real ones- “From a dragon!” There were gasps, and some cheers. “Now, your champions have drawn their dragons. They know their challenge. They are ready to prove themselves. And so-BRING IN THE FIRST DRAGON!” Colossal doors opened on the side of the arena, where ten or so witches and wizards stood next to a large cage. They slid open the doors, and a silvery-blue dragon trampled into the arena, over to the eggs. As the crowd roared with applause, Astoria thought it was strangely breathtaking, standing over them, ready to protect. A beautiful monster.

“Firstly, facing the Swedish Short-Snout, representing Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, CEDRIC DIGGORY!” Most of the Hogwarts students jumped out of their seats to cheer. “ARE YOU READY? 5… 4… 3… 2… 1!” There was a sharp, loud whistle, and Cedric stepped out into the arena in his Hufflepuff Quidditch gear. As Cedric stepped closer to the dragon, dodging jets of blue flame behind the rocks, Astoria happily joined in the chant of ‘Diggory’. 

Cedric seemed immune to the cries of the school as he pointed his wand away from the dragon.

“What the hell is he doing?” Katherine asked, as Zabini yelled.

“Oi! Dragon’s the other way, idiot!”

“Hufflepuffs!” scoffed Draco, “You can’t avoid confrontation with a  _ dragon _ !” But apparently Cedric was smarter than them all, because he had transfigured a rock into a dog, which distracted the dragon. Cedric dashed for the egg, grabbing it and running back towards where he came. The crowds went wild, but that seemed to alert the dragon, which whirled around and exhaled a jet of blue flames towards Cedric, who spun behind a rock.

The team of witches and wizards who had released the dragon came rushing out to subdue it, and as they dragged the Swedish Short-Snout out of the arena, Cedric stepped out from behind the boulder. Even from afar, Astoria could tell that half of his face was bright red and appeared to be blistering. 

“Oh, shit” someone muttered as Madam Pomfrey bustled over and pulled him into a tent. The crowd’s enthusiasm seemed to be heavily dampered. They waited for fifteen minutes or so in nervous anticipation, nobody speaking much after seeing Cedric’s burn, until he stepped out of the medical tent, waving his arms, and everyone exploded into applause. 

“And now the marks from the judges!” shouted Ludo Bagman, and everyone quieted. Madame Maxine raised her wand, and shot out a large, silver eight. There was applause, and then it was Mr. Crouch’s turn. He gave Cedric a nine. Then came Dumbledore, who put up an eight. Ludo Bagman-eight. The final judge, Professor Karkaroff, gave Cedric a six.

“Totaled up, that’s 38 points out of a possible 50!” Cried Bagman, “Congratulations Cedric! Now, for our next contestant!” The dragon-handlers brought in a slightly smaller green dragon. “Facing the Common Green Welsh, representing Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, FLEUR DELACOUR!” There was a considerable amount less enthusiasm for Fleur, mainly because of how greatly the Hogwarts students outnumbered those from Beauxbatons. “5… 4… 3… 2… 1!” The sharp whistle blew again, and fleur stepped into the arena in her blue uniform, silvery hair braided around her head. 

As the dragon roared, Astoria’s first thought was how absolutely absurd it was that they were making her fight a dragon in a skirt. Fleur walked slowly towards the dragon, which was yet to shoot any flames. It roared as she approached, but she kept walking. Astoria leaned forwards, transfixed. Facing a dragon head-on, walking towards it without fear, wand ready in one hand, eyes dark with determination, Fleur looked like some kind of war goddess. 

The dragon roared and exhaled a great stream of vibrant red flames towards her. In the nick of time, she ducked behind a boulder. Astoria imagined her on the other side of the rock, back pressed up against it, heart racing, planning her next move. Fleur’s wand poked out from behind the boulder and shot a stream of white light at the dragon, which began to sway as though it was very dizzy, and then collapsed to the ground, its tail flicking slightly. Astoria’s jaw dropped.

“Did she just… put a dragon to sleep?” 

“Yeah,” she heard Katherine breathe next to her, not taking her eyes off of Fleur, “It’s incredible” 

“Please!” Draco said as Fleur made her way across the terrain towards the dragon, “It can’t be that hard”. Astoria tore her eyes away from the champion to look at Draco.

“Really? Could you do it?” He looked taken aback.

“... probably”. Astoria rolled her eyes and looked back at the arena, where Fleur was now dangerously close to the dragon’s head. Suddenly, the dragon let out a loud snort, and jets of flames exploded from its nostrils. Fleur dove to the side, but the fire hit her skirt as it swung after her, setting aflame. There was the starts of a scream, but she seemed to catch herself, which was good, because if the dragon had awoken while she lay on the rock not six feet away, it probably would have killed her. A stream of water projected from Fleur’s wand, and she very shakily got to her feet, skirt still smoking. She carefully crept over to the golden egg, picked it up, and then sprinted to the exit. 

Once again, the dragon-handlers pulled the beast out of the arena. This time, because only Fleur’s clothing had burned, not her herself, the judges gave their scores immediately. 

“She was better than Cedric,” said Lydia, and everyone murmured their agreement. 

“Judges, your scores!” cried Bagman. Madam Maxine began, with a nine. Mr. Crouch awarded an eight, while Professor Dumbledore gave a seven. Ludo Bagman awarded a seven as well, while Karkaroff gave a six. 

“That brings Miss Delacour to a total of 37 points. Excellent work!” Cried Bagman. 

“Okay,” Rebecca said slowly, “I want Cedric to win and all, but in what world did he do better than Fleur? She was faster and didn’t get hurt. And why did Karkaroff give her a six?”. 

“He gave Cedric a six, too” said Katherine.

“Karkaroff prefers an aggressive approach,” said Draco confidently, “He runs Durmstrang. And they both evaded. Neither of them fought the dragon”.

“Can a single seventeen year old can fight a dragon head on and live?” Pansy asked him, and Draco shrugged.

“One with the benefit of Durmstrang Dark Arts classes, sure”. 

“I think he’s just a lousy judge,” said Astoria, indignant on Fleur and Cedric’s behalfs, “He’s giving them bad marks because he wants Krum to win”. As they had been talking, the dragon-handlers had brought in a brilliant red and gold dragon.

“Facing the Chinese Fireball,” Bagman was saying, “Representing Durmstrang Institute, VICTOR KRUM!” This time, the crowd showed just as much enthusiasm as they had for Cedric. Diggory might be their champion, but Krum was the hero of many Hogwarts’ students, and he was treated as such. As Krum entered the field, Astoria found herself wondering if Fleur was hurt by the lack of support she received. If it affected her morale, her faith in her ability to win the competition. It was kind of sad, really, because she had a whole school behind her, just like Cedric, but she didn’t get to have them to cheer her on. 

Then Astoria shook her head. Why did she care about the Beauxbatons champion’s potential inner emotional turmoil? She focused on the competition, where Krum was dodging round balls of flame and shooting jinxes at the dragon. 

“See?” Draco said delightedly, “He’s fighting the dragon!” He was, but he seemed to be fighting a losing battle; the jinxes seemed to only make the Chinese Fireball angrier. Then, he shot out a red blast, which hit the dragon directly in the eye. It roared in pain, it’s eyes swelling bright red and then fixing closed. The dragon began trampling around wildly, attention gone from Krum, who was attempting to dart in and collect the golden egg without being stepped on.

“What spell was that?” Asked Katherine, and Astoria responded

“Conjunctivitis, probably-” at the exact same time as Daphne said,

“-Conjunctivitis curse”. Pansy looked between them, bemused.

“Why do you know that?” The sisters made uncomfortable eye contact. 

“I think our father’s mentioned it a few times” said Daphne quietly. As everyone else returned their attention to the challenge, Astoria zoned out, staring at the eggs. She didn’t even realize that several of the real eggs had been destroyed, and Krum had collected the golden egg until the cheers of her friends around her startled her into paying attention.

“The judges scores!” Called Bagman. Madame Maxine awarded Krum a seven. Mr. Crouch gave an eight and Dumbledore both gave eights. Bagman gave a seven, and then Karkaroff raised his wand and rated Krum a ten. 

“That brings Mr. Krum’s score to 40 points!” Cried Bagman, “Well done!” The Durmstrang students hollered and stomped their canes, but both the Hogwarts and Beauxbatons students were muttering indignantly. Even Dumbledore and Madame Maxine looked displeased. 

“He destroyed real eggs!” Cried Lydia, “And his own headmaster gave him a perfect score? That can’t be allowed!” 

“He  _ fought  _ a  _ dragon _ ,” said Draco, “That makes him better than the others by default”. Finally, the dragon-handlers brought in an enormous, black scaly dragon, with sharp looking barbs down its back and tail. It was, out of every dragon, entirely monstrous. Pansy laughed.

“Potter’s got the worst one!” The group grinned.

“Facing the Hungarian Horntail, representing Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Boy Who Lived, HARRY POTTER!” The Gryffindors jumped out of their seats in applause, while the Ravenclaws, Hufflepufs, and foreign students applauded politely. Astoria and her friends sat motionless. 

“The Boy Who Lived!” mimicked Draco in a high pitched voice as Bagman counted down. “He has to have his own special introduction, too?” Potter stepped out into the arena, pointed his wand in the air, and shouted something with a great deal of intensity.

Absolutely nothing happened. 

“Merlin, what an idiot!” Cried Katherine with a great deal of mirth.

“He’s fucked!” Draco laughed, and soon they were all hiding their snickers as the rest of the crowd cheered. 

Famous Harry Potter was doing nothing, just crouched behind a boulder, and Astoria thought it was a little pathetic. She had always thought that, if arrogant and self-absorbed and inconvenient, Potter had to at least be a powerful wizard to accomplish what he had. But there he was hiding in fear, when every other champion had at least done  _ something _ . Then there were some screams, on the other side of the stadium, closer to the castle, a broomstick was soaring through the air. The spectators on the other side ducked as it shot past him and into Potter’s hands. 

He jumped onto the broomstick, and the crowd exploded with excitement. Potter was twisting and turning, diving through the air, slowly and methodically luring the Horntail away from her eggs. It was, honestly, impressive, and for just a second, Astoria found herself internally rooting for Harry Potter. He was fourteen years old, he was facing a dragon, and he was doing fantastic. But she caught herself; he hadn’t been forced to face a dragon, he had done this to himself by forcing himself somewhere he didn’t belong, just like every other time. She hoped the fire hit him, just to make him regret being such a prat.

He wasn’t burned, but the dragon did strike him with its tail, which Astoria counted as a win. Almost as quickly as he had begun, Potter had collected the egg and settled down safely near the medical tent. Just like with Cedric, they had to wait for the scores while he was treated, but when he finally emerged the entire school, save the Slytherins, greeted him with raucous applause.

How had public opinion changed so quickly? All he had to do was pull out his broom, and suddenly he was their Quidditch star again, the youngest Seeker in a century, the prodigy, always catches the Snitch first. It wasn’t fair! Just when the other houses were starting to realize what Astoria and her friends had known all along, that he was an insufferable, pretentious, attention-seeker, he had somehow won them all back.

“Judges, your scores!” Called Bagman. Madame Maxine rated Potter an eight, which seemed fair enough. He had done a good job, but he’d been injured. Crouch and Dumbledore both gave him a nine- of course Dumbledore ranked him so highly, it was like higher-stakes House Points. Ludo Bagman awarded him a ten, which was as ludicrous as Krum’s ten, although Astoria figured this particular favouritism was just for because he was famous. Then, Karkaroff put up a 4, and for a moment Astoria was outraged. He was so clearly, unbelievably biased for his own champion, and gave Harry only enough points for them to tie. There was no question Harry had done well- in what world was it worth a 4? What kind of sportsmanship was that?At least Madam Maxine, who seemed biased too, had been reasonable. 

“Hah!” Cried Draco, “That’ll temper Potter’s ego”. Astoria supposed he was right; even if the judging was unfair, it was better that Potter wasn’t winning. He’d be even more insufferable if he did. And besides, he might have conned the rest of the school into supporting him again, but he hadn’t tricked her. He never would. 

The next day, Astoria was walking to the Great Hall when she heard Vicente call her name. 

“It seems we are both equally close to winning our bet, with our champions only one point apart” he commented. 

“Yeah, one point apart in last and second last” She said bitterly, and Vicente just shrugged.

“So I suppose you could say we are both equally far away from winning our bet”. Astoria was once again hit with a wave of anger of how unfair the scoring had been. 

“It’s absurd!” Astoria cried angrily, “Karkaroff wasn’t even  _ pretending _ to be neutral. And the way they rated Fleur? They gave her the worst mark because her skirt set on fire? She was faster than Cedric and half his  _ face  _ set on fire! The fire barely caught her, I bet it wouldn’t have if they had let her wear pants! She and Krum were the only ones not injured, and he damaged the real eggs! She didn’t! Not to mention she magically put an entire dragon to sleep, do you have any idea how hard that’d be?” Vicente raised his eyebrows, looking bemused. 

“I know. She was completely cheated and she should’ve won the challenge. I know why I care about that, but why do you?” Astoria stopped, embarrassed for reasons she didn’t understand. Why  _ did _ she care? Her champion was beating Vicente’s. It was good news. She opened her mouth and then closed it. 

“Um… I just care a lot about fairness. And justice”. Vicente snorted.

“Alright. Well, I suppose I can trust you to pay up when Fleur wins”. Astoria didn’t counter his claim about Fleur’s certain win with a defence of Cedric, because she was currently pondering why she had just gotten so passionate about Fleur’s scores. “Okay,” said Vicente, and Astoria realized the rudeness of her silence. “Well, I’ll see you around, Greengrass”. 

After Vicente left, Astoria continued towards the Great Hall, where she found Daphne, Lydia, and Rebecca deep in conversation at the Gryffindor table. She slid in next to them. 

“What’s going on?” She asked suspiciously.

“What do you mean?” responded Lydia innocuously.

“Oh, come one. The three of you are  _ not  _ friends”. The other girls glanced between each other for several moments. “Hello?” Daphne made eye contact with Rebecca and jerked her head towards Astoria. “You know, I’m really not enjoying this”.

“We’re talking about your prophecy” said Rebecca finally.

“I thought we agreed specifically to  _ not do that _ !”

“Yeah, but we think it’s about the Triwizard Tournament,” Lydia jumped in. Astoria stared at them.

“Why?”

“Through water deep and fire’s breath, the final task brings birth and death,” recited Rebecca. “Fire’s breath could be the first task. If the second task has to do with water we’ll know for sure”.

“And it mentions ‘the spare’!” said Daphne, “That’s Harry Potter”. 

“Okay, then who’s the king of snakes and skulls? And unless Fleur is secretly pregnant I’m pretty sure there’s not gonna be any birth in the final task”. 

“Well, we don’t know who the king is, we’ll find out later I think. And it could be a metaphorical birth. No one’s going to die, either, they made the Tournament safer this year”. 

“Yeah, it could literally just mean the ‘death’ of a champion and the ‘birth’ of a victor when someone wins”. 

“That’s mad! Sometimes prophecies aren't fulfilled for hundreds of years. Why can't you guys just let it be?". Around her, ghosts swirled, paintings lived, and the castle seemed to hum with a thousand years of history. It was possible. She just didn't want it to be. 


	14. where there's a will

_ “What a weary time those years were -- to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.” -  _ _ Charles Bukowski,  _ _ Ham on Rye _ _ (1982) _

**December, 1994**

The Greengrass sisters were sitting in the Great Hall on a snowy morning, working on their homework together as they ate pastries and waited for the mail. Daphne groaned and slammed her head down on the parchment. Astoria looked up, mostly to procrastinate her own schoolwork.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just- I understand what I’m writing about, you know, when Professor Binns is talking about it I get it. But when I go to write it down, I just can’t express what I’m trying to say!” Astoria grabbed Daphne’s parchment, which was a jumble of crossed out lines, arrows, and greatly misspelled words.

“What… are you trying to say here?”

“The wand legislation in the 1700s was completely unjust! The goblins had a right to rebel and the fact that it remains in place today is a travesty!” Astoria stared at her.

“You think goblins should have wands?”

“Why not? Why do we get to be the ones to choose? You know-you should pay attention in History of Magic, you’d actually learn a lot”. Astoria rolled her eyes.

“I’ll take your word for it.” She picked up the quill. “Now tell me exactly what makes it unjust”. Astoria scratched away with the quill as Daphne spoke, trying to rearrange her sister’s thoughts into something that would be more understandable to other people. After a time, Lars slid into the seat next to her. 

“Ah, the goblin rebellions of the 18th century. A beautiful, bloody chapter in your history. You know, in Denmark we exterminated them all a hundred years earlier. It would’ve been much easier to just do that, although I suppose you’ve found some use for them now, running your banks. Still,”- He took a sip of Astoria’s pumpkin juice -“I’d never trust my money to a goblin. Don’t know whether they might just make away with it”. Astoria shifted her arms over the parchment, obscuring Daphne’s pro-goblin thesis. 

“Is that so?” Daphne asked coolly.

“Yep.” He said cheerily. “Listen, let me know if you need any essay help. I could refiine your argument”.

“I think I’m good” She said, “But I’ll keep it in mind”.

“Of course, you’ve already got the most brilliant witch at Hogwarts right here, self described”. Astoria shrugged.

“I won’t apologize for knowing I’m the best”. He laughed lightly.

“Ah, we would ask no such thing of you, of course”. There was a pause. “I understand it is one of your… town visit weekends, here at Hogwarts”. It took Astoria a second or two to understand.

“Oh! Yes, we’re allowed to go down to Hogsmeade”.

“I see. This is a peculiar tradition. We have no allowances to leave the school at Durmstrang”.

“I guess this must be nice for you then”.

“I was not there, the last weekend, and so I am eager to understand why you Hogwarts students say it is so enjoyable”.

“Well, make sure you go by the Three Broomsticks for a Butterbeer”. He nodded.

“I will. Would you join me there for a drink, this evening?” Astoria made eye contact with Daphne, who looked just as bemused as she felt.

“I’ll be in Hogsmeade with a few of my friends this afternoon. I suppose we’ll run into each other there”.

“I suppose so. I will see you later, then, Astoria”. He nodded his head to each of them, and was gone. Daphne turned to her. 

“Oh my god! Was that a date? Did he just ask you out?”

“I don’t know! It sounded like it, but that’s crazy, right?”

“Does he know how old you are?”

“I mean we’ve never had a conversation about it. He knows I’m not seventeen. But there’s no way you could confuse me for being near that age anyways… right?” Daphne cocked her head, surveying Astoria carefully. 

“I mean, you could be like fifteen…”

“Huh”. She looked down at the parchment, feeling the sudden need to change the subject. “He was sort of right about goblins, though. They’re animals, Daphne, why are you arguing for their rights?” Daphne forcefully tugged her essay away from Astoria.

“They’re not animals, they’re intelligent, rational creatures capable of- and you’re just so blinded by the wizarding rhetoric- why don’t you think for yourself- empathy…” Daphne’s anger struck a nerve in Astoria as only siblings can.

“What a well-put argument.” She said wryly. “You really proved me wrong. Are you going to employ that ruthless logic in the rest of your essay?” Daphne scowled.

“Thanks for the help,” she muttered, and took off. 

In Hogsmeade, Katherine, Lydia, and Astoria shopped around for Yule Ball attire. Astoria had the specific goal of avoiding Lars, who was entirely too old, and she just didn’t want to deal with it. They found Pansy and the fourth year girls in a jewelry shop, where everyone was inspecting an emerald necklace around Pansy’s neck. Daphne was saying something that Astoria didn’t catch over the whistling of the wind and the sound of the door closing.

“We’re not all illiterate, Daphne” Pansy snapped, and even though Astoria had said something similar only a few hours earlier, she found herself righteously angry on her sister’s behalf. She was struck with sudden inspiration for a Christmas gift, and then pulled herself back into the moment, where Pansy was disdainfully dropping the necklace onto the counter.

“Not good enough for the Yule Ball,” She said to the shopkeeper, “Get me something better”. She flicked her eyes over to the third-years, who were browsing the shop.

“What are you doing here, anyways? Third years aren’t allowed at the Yule Ball”. 

“Except by invite,” Katherine reminded her. “We’ll be going”. 

“Oh? And who’s asked you?” Lydia rolled her eyes.

“No one yet. But they will”. Pansy smirked.

“I’ll be going with Draco, of course, so I think I’ll wear the Malfoy family colours-purple, gold, and green”.

“Really?” Astoria said, amused at the idea of Pansy memorizing various facts about House Malfoy, like their family colours. “Has he already asked you?”. Pansy glared at her.

“He’s going to”. Astoria grinned.

“I don’t doubt it”. Unlike Pansy, she didn’t have a specific target for the Yule Ball. She had decided she was going the second she heard about it, but who was actually going to ask her? She pondered it as they wandered through Hogsmeade. As it got colder, and the day drew to a close, they decided to head to the Three Broomsticks to warm up. On the way, she stopped by Schrivenshaft’s for Daphne’s gift, and then to the pub. 

As she and her friends searched for a table, she heard a voice calling her name. Lars was sitting with Brit and a few other Durmstrang students. Krum, noticeably, was nowhere to be seen. Astoria turned to Katherine and Lydia.

“Excuse me,” She said, “I’m going to go get myself a date to the Yule Ball”. She slipped into the booth next to Lars, and he gestured to Madam Rosmerta for two more Butterbeers.

Astoria was careful to spend lots of time with Lars from thereon out, but in greatly public places. She had no desire to actually date him; he was, again, weirdly old, and she was determined not to get into a situation where she might be expected to do anything to confirm that. She met him in the Great Hall, or the library, even the Common Room a few times, and enlisted her friends to come and drag her away when necessary. Katherine and Lydia were delighted with the game she was playing- Rebecca was entirely uncomfortable, but agreed to help her out anyways. 

Winter break was approaching, and Lars still hadn’t asked her to the ball. Astoria was getting impatient, and worried, and so she asked him to hang out in the Slytheirn Common Room, where they sat together on the couch, the other girls a few tables away. 

Draco came hopping down the stairs, skipping every few. He rushed through the Common Room, seating himself at a table by the fire and then looking around. His eyes fell on Astoria and Lars.

“No”. He said forcefully, and everyone turned to look. “Slytherins only. Get the fuck out of the common room”. Astoria stared at him.

“I invited him”.

“And I don’t care. Get. Out.” Lars rolled his eyes and stood up.

“I’ll see you later, Astoria”. The door closed behind him, and Draco turned on Astoria.

“What is wrong with you?”

“I really don’t see why him being in the Common Room is  _ that  _ big of a deal”. 

“It’s not! It’s that he’s here with  _ you _ ”.

“What does that mean?” She cried.

“He’s  _ seventeen _ . It’s creepy!”

“I know how old he is, idiot! Old enough to go to the Yule Ball!” Draco started.  
“Well if you wanted to go to the Yule Ball, you should have just said so!” He nodded his head behind him, where his goons were puzzling away at some homework or other.. “Crabbe will take you”. She stared at him for several seconds. In no universe did she ever want to go on a date with Vincent Crabbe, but she really, _really_ wanted to go to that ball.

“Great,” She said finally. 

“Good”. He said, “It’s settled then. You’ll go with Crabbe, and you’ll stop hanging out with adults”. Astoria scowled.

“Fine”. 

A few days later, Snape called a house meeting with everyone who would be attending the ball.

“The Yule Ball,” He said slowly, “is an event of great importance. I expect all of you to represent your house and school with pride. As such, it is important you know how not to embarrass yourself. And so,”- it looked like he had just smelled something very foul- “you will need to learn to dance”. He looked around the room, where everyone was whispering and trading glances. “Miss Blueheart, if you would join me please”. A redheaded sixth year girl’s eyes widened, and her friends shoved her forwards. Snape turned on music, and then turned to the girl, who looked as if she was experiencing her worst nightmare. “I am going to place my hand on your waist. You will place your hand on my shoulder”. 

If watching Snape dance with an unfortunate sixteen-year-old was uncomfortable, practicing with Crabbe was worse. The fourth time he stepped on her feet, she cemented her decision to immediately ditch him once the ball started. 

Mr. Greengrass insisted that Astoria and Rebecca return home for the first half of Christmas break. They did their duties: paid respects to their mother and grandparents at the family plot, visited with their Aunt Talissa and young cousins. A few days in, he called them into his office.

“I was going to get you both new dress robes for the Yule Ball,” he told them, “But I have no idea what the young witches like. So instead, I sent a letter to the owner of Twilfitt and Tattings. Tomorrow you can go to Diagon Alley and get whatever robe you’d like. They’ll just charge it to us at Gringotts”. 

Astoria had rarely been into Diagon Alley in the winter-it was beautiful, snow sparkling from each little shop. She and Daphne entered Twilfitt and Tattings, where a tall, familiar-looking woman with black and white hair stood with her back to the door, being measured for alterations. Another witch bustled around her, measuring and pinning different areas of the robes. The seamstress looked up. “Welcome!” She said, pausing her pins for a moment. “You must be the Greengrass girls. Feel free to browse around- I’ll be with you as soon as I’m done here”. 

“Thank you,” Daphne said, turning to look at the racks.

“Hello, Mrs. Malfoy,” called Astoria, and the woman turned. 

“Hello. Astoria, is it?” Astoria nodded. 

“Yes. We met in Italy, a few summers ago. I was staying with the Selwyns”.

“I remember. I know your father as well, of course. This must be your sister?” Daphne stepped forwards, extending her hand.

“I’m Daphne. I’m in Draco’s year at Hogwarts”. Mrs. Malfoy shook her hand.

“Pleasure to meet you. I assume you girls are here to find robes for the Yule Ball?” They nodded. “I tried to get Draco to come shopping with me for his, but he insisted that anything over three hundred galleons looked the same”. Astoria laughed politely. 

“For wizards, maybe”. Mrs. Malfoy smiled.

“Good luck on your shopping. There is an extraordinary green dress over on the far rack there. I’d have bought it immediately if I were a younger witch. You, however, would look spectacular in it”. 

Astoria nodded her thanks and headed off in that direction. It was immediately clear which dress Mrs. Malfoy had been talking about. It was a gown of deep, rich, emerald green, made of fabric that looked weightless even on the hanger. She reached out to touch it, finding it to be so soft and airy it seemed not to exist at all. The tag announced itself as Acromantula silk, spun and processed in Jiangsu, the finest in the world. 

“Would you like to try that on, my dear?” It seemed the shop attendant had finished Mrs. Malfoy’s measurements. 

“Yes please,” she said breathlessly. The witch directed her to a curtained change room. She stepped out and turned to look at herself in the mirror. The skirt spun out around her, dancing as she shifted her weight. It seemed to have some kind of enchantment on it, playfully floaty while still maintaining a full, round skirt around her. 

“Holy shit” said Daphne, who had just approached from behind her, holding several dresses. Astoria turned.

“I know”. Daphne stepped into the dressing room with a vibrant scarlet robe. 

“If I might,” said the witch to Astoria, “I happen to remember your aunt Talissa Volant wearing the most magnificent black sapphire necklace to a ball in our Hogwarts days. It looked to me to be a family heirloom, not a personal possession, and if that’s the case I’d imagine it’s still in the Greengrass family vault. I believe it would compliment this dress marvelously.” 

Astoria was trying to figure out if she’d ever seen that necklace when Daphne stepped out in the red dress, which had a strange ruffle down the front of it. Daphne furrowed her brows as she studied herself in the mirror.

“I don’t like it,” Astoria told her. “You should try the blue one”. 

The blue dress robes were much better; a deep navy embedded with flecks of sparkle, shimmering like the night sky. Together, they were the Greengrass colours: Daphne in her dark, sparkly blue, and Astoria in rich green. Navy, silver, and green. After buying their dresses, the sisters split up to buy each other Christmas gifts, and agreed to meet at the Leaky Cauldron in a few hours.

Already having bought Daphne’s gift in Hogsmeade, Astoria headed to Madam Pimpernelle’s to look for new makeup prior to the ball. Inside, Astoria recognized Hermione Granger and a woman who must be her mother looking at potions. After she got over her immediate disgust at the sight of a Muggle in Diagon Alley, she saw that they were looking at various hair potions, and not the good ones. She sighed. Hermione had helped her out with Revelio last year, so she owed her something in return.

“Hi Hermione!” She said, making her way across the shop. Hermione startled, looking quite embarrassed. 

“Oh! Hello, Astoria”. Tori gestured at the potion Hermione had rapidly set down upon being recognized.

“You’re going to want Sleekeazy’s. Nothing else is as good”. 

“I don’t know,” she said, “We have pretty different hair types”. Astoria smiled wryly, looking at Hermione’s very frizzy, very poofy ponytail. 

“We do. But Sleekeazy’s works for everyone. It was actually made by Fleamont Potter”. Hermione gave her a strange smile, and Astoria figured she hadn’t expected any help from her.

“Thanks”.

“No problem,” Astoria told her, “I’ll see you at Hogwarts”. As she walked away, she heard Hermione and her mother’s conversation.

“I don’t know…” Her mother was saying, “There’s no such thing as a product that’s perfect for every hair type”.

“It’s magic, Mum!”

“Still, that seems impossible”. 

“Oh, look! It says here it was made by Fleamont Potter. That’s Harry’s grandpa!” 

At that point, Astoria was out of earshot, thankful that she had found some way to help Hermione out. She hadn’t been able to stand being in debt to a muggleborn Gryffindor. It was humiliating, even though no one else even knew about it.

  
  



	15. mountains out of molehills

_ “In the waters where we used to swim / where we thought we would be young forever”- Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), Kids in ‘99 (2019) _

On Christmas morning, back at Hogwarts, Astoria and Daphne exchanged their gifts. Astoria opened hers first, a large, heavy box. She tore off the wrapping paper to find a dark, ornately carved box. The lid was connected on one side, with a silver clasp holding it closed on the other. Carefully, she unfastened the clasp and opened the box. The interior was a dark, cushiony velvet, and inside was a lilac, pearly, crystal ball. Carefully, she lifted the orb out of its case. The stand was three beautifully sculpted silver snakes. As she peered at her gift, shadowy shapes began to materialize within the orb. Astoria quickly put it away.

“Wow,” was all she could say. Daphne smiled gently. 

“You don’t need to use it right away, or any time soon really. Take it at your own pace. But you can’t ignore it. This is the kind of thing that will chase you no matter how far you run. It’s better to face it head on. You’re a Seer, Astoria. It’s part of you”. 

The present Astoria gave Daphne was also in a box, thin and flat.

“Is this a new wand?” Daphne joked as she removed the lid. “Oh. It’s a quill”. She couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice. “Wait a second. I’ve seen this before. Did you give me  _ your  _ quill for Christmas?”

“It’s a scribe quill,” Astoria told her. “But not one that writes exactly what you say. It’ll rephrase what you’re saying into something more articulate. And yes, I have been using it, for the purpose of your Christmas present, because the better it gets to know you, the better it’ll do at understanding your thoughts. I’ve only used it to write your essays as you talk, so it's already calibrated to you”. 

“Oh!” Daphne spoke a few words to the quill, which floated over to the nearest parchment and started scratching away as she spoke. She looked at the parchment and gasped. “It’s incredible!” Astoria smiled. 

“You won’t be able to use it in exams, obviously, but I thought it might save you a lot of pain writing essays”. Daphne, who was blinking back tears, enveloped Astoria in a hug.

Later, in their dormitory, Astoria, Katherine, and Lydia bustled around, preparing for the Yule Ball, or, in their own eyes, the biggest night of their Hogwarts career. Astoria’s hair trick was exactly the same as every other witch in the world’s: plenty of Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion, and a curling charm straight out of Witch Weekly. After fixing her hair and makeup, she slipped on the rich green dress robes, pausing for a moment to admire herself in a mirror. Then she fixed her necklace around her neck: the one the shopkeeper had recommended, with the black sapphires. 

“Ooooh!” She heard from behind her. “It’s beautiful!” 

“Thanks!” Said Astoria, “It’s an old family piece”. She turned around. Lydia was wearing stiff robes of pale, stunning blue, covered in intricate floral embroidery, clearly influenced by her Japanese heritage. “Your robes are gorgeous!” 

“Oh, do you like them?” Lydia asked happily. “It was my mother’s, although we did have the tailor change the cut of it to be a bit more modern”.

“Astoria, if you’re done,”-Katherine, who had yet to get dressed, did not sound friendly- “could you please step out and stop taking up space?” Astoria rolled her eyes. Normally, five girls shared the dormitory without issue. Right now, with only three of them present, Astoria was taking up too much space by standing in her own corner? But it wasn’t worth an argument- she should get going anyways. She stepped out of the third-year dorm and took a few steps down the hall, where she was joined by Pansy, exiting her own dormitory. 

Pansy just nodded at her, and Astoria dipped her head in return. She wasn’t sure what was with the icy reception, but with Pansy it was best to just roll with it and treat her the way she treated you. The older girl’s skirt was a royal purple, with a throw of purple fabric that extended up to one shoulder above her green bodice, and a gold waistband. Astoria was pretty sure those were the Malfoy colours Pansy had recited in Hogsmeade.  _ Wow _ , was all she could think,  _ that’s a lot more heavy-handed than I expected _ . They entered the common room. Over by the window, surveying the Black Lake, stood a group of students, including Draco, Crabbe and Goyle, who all turned as they approached.

“Cool necklace” Draco said to Astoria.

“Thank you,” She responded, “It’s an heirloom”. Draco nodded.

“I like that it’s black”. Astoria stared at him for a second.  _ What? Does he have the conversational skills of a five year old all of the sudden, or did that mean something so veiled I can’t even guess what it means?  _ Astoria was saved from responding to his strange comment by Pansy, clearing her throat impatiently. She looked furious that she hadn’t been addressed first, but the second Draco turned to her it melted away into a simpering smile.

“Erm, you look nice,” Draco said. He raised his eyebrows. “You’re in Malfoy colours”. Pansy giggled and looked down at her dress robes.

“Really? I didn’t even realize!” She shrugged. “I guess we’re just that in sync”. Astoria laughed out loud, and then turned it into a cough, although the dark look Pansy shot her suggested her misdirection had been unsuccessful.

“I guess so,” said Draco, offering Pansy his arm. “Let’s go down”. Crabbe didn’t show the same manners, and Astoria made no attempt to force him as they ascended up to the Great Hall. They stopped in the Entrance Hall, where everyone was waiting for the doors to open, and Astoria tried her best to blend in with the group, so no one would know she was accompanying Crabbe. For his part, he seemed to have forgotten he was her date, anyways. 

The doors to the Great Hall were thrown open, and they filed in, past the champions. Fleur Delacour (looking stunning as ever) stood next to the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, Cedric Diggory was arm in arm with Cho Chang (no surprise there), and Harry Potter was with a very pretty girl in radiant pink robes, intricately (and expensively, it looked) embroidered with threads of gold. But most noteworthy was Viktor Krum, in his Durmstrang crimson, escorting Hermione Granger, whose fluttery periwinkle robes contrasted brilliantly against her dark skin. She seemed to have used Sleekeezy, or at least found some other way to tame her hair, and there was this captivating brightness in her eyes. She looked, quite frankly, more beautiful than Astoria had ever seen her.

“Krum and Granger?” Pansy said in disbelief once they had entered the ball, “But she’s a mudblood!” Oh, right. Astoria had been too distracted by how good Hermione looked to comprehend that a muggleborn was the date of an international Quidditch star. She was supposed to be mad about that. They settled at their table with most of the other fourth-year Slytherins. Daphne wasn’t with them; Astoria looked around, and noticed her sister chatting animatedly with the Hufflepuff boy she was accompanying. Astoria smiled. Daphne would have more fun with another group, anyways.

After dinner had been served, the Weird Sisters marched on stage, and Astoria, like most of the school, took the opportunity to cheer wildly. The champions stepped onto the dancefloor, and within a few songs most every other couple had drifted off to join them.

Astoria slumped in her chair next to Crabbe. It’s not like she  _ wanted  _ to dance with him, but what the hell was she supposed to do for the rest of the ball? Bored, she surveyed the Great Hall, where a few small groups sat talking. Across the hall, Harry Potter sat with his date, Ron Weasley, and another girl who appeared to be the date’s twin. She was equally pretty, in bright turquoise robes that looked just as delicate and expensive. Their beauty- accentuated by their gold jewelry- far outmatched that of Potter, and especially Weasley, each of whom looked like he had just rolled out of bed. Weasley seemed to be wearing his great-grandmother’s dress robes. It comforted Astoria to know that there were other disappointed witches, looking better than their dates and wishing they were with someone else.

Pansy and Draco came falling off the dance floor, red and out of breath, and were soon followed by Theodore Nott and his date, who all took their seats. They spent several minutes discussing something or other, Astoria wasn’t sure; she was too busy feeling sorry for herself to pay attention.

“I’m going to get some punch,” said Pansy, “Would you like any, Draco?”

“No thanks” 

“I want punch!” Crabbe finally spoke, and Pansy gave him a withering look.

“Get it yourself”. She turned on her heel and walked away. A few seconds later, the Weird Sisters began playing another of their songs, upbeat and lively. It was the same one that had been playing last summer at the Quidditch World Cup, when Draco had tripped Afonso and Rebecca. Almost unwillingly, her eyes slid to his, and to her surprise, he was already looking at her. 

“Want to dance?” She smiled and took his hands.

“Definitely”. They twirled into the centre of things, and Astoria felt her previous despondency melt away. She was in a pretty dress in a beautiful room, and now she was up and dancing and spending time with someone that she was actually friends with. 

“Got anyone you need to trip this time?” He asked her lightly, and she grinned.

“None on my part. You?” He looked around.

“No. It’s a shame Potter and pals aren’t dancing”. Astoria snorted. “What?” He asked her.

“ ‘Potter and pals’ is up there in the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard you say”. Draco rolled his eyes.

“I’ll have you know that I have never said anything ridiculous in my life. Potter and pals is a perfectly dignified shorthand for Potter, Weasley, and Granger”. She smirked.

“Of course, my apologies Mr. Malfoy, you are nothing if not composed and respectable. Although,” she added, “if I might humbly offer my opinion, you might wish to avoid the usage of that phrase in front of…”- she paused-“well, anyone else, really, or risk losing your-ah- intimidation factor”. 

“Noted,” he said, “And dutifully ignored”. Astoria fought the urge to stick her tongue out at him. They continued to dance, perfectly in sync, like most of the purebloods across the room.  _ Like he was with Pansy _ , Astoria thought, then wondered why she thought that. Every respectable pureblood family taught their children to dance prior to Hogwarts, which was part of why she had been so surprised at Crabbe stepping all over her feet when they had practiced. He had known the steps, but just been clumsy. No amount of training could educate out oafishness, apparently. But unlike his lackey, Draco was moving with exquisite grace. 

Before she even realized it, the song had winded to a close, and a new, slower piece had begun. They danced just a few measures, and then all of a sudden, Pansy Parkinson was standing next to them. Astoria nearly yelped in surprise. 

“Excuse me Tori,” Pansy said, venomously sweet, “You seem to have kidnapped my date”. Astoria stepped back as she allowed Pansy to take Draco’s hands.

“All yours”. She walked away, the realization dawning that she would have to return and sit in silence with Crabbe and Goyle. She looked around desperately, for anyone else she knew, but Daphne and Katherine and Lydia were all off enjoying themselves with their dates, and most of Astoria’s friends were in third year, and not even at the ball. A silver tray carrying glasses of champagne floated up to her, and she felt the sudden need to pick up each glass individually and smash it. Instead, she grabbed one and drained it in one gulp.

Gloomily, she flopped down at her table. Crabbe greeted her without looking up.

“Hullo,” he said dully, and she grimaced.

“Hi”. They sat in silence for half a minute or so, until she spoke again. “Aren’t you bored, just sitting here all night?”

“Huh?” He asked, and she sighed in exasperation, but he seemed to process just before she could repeat herself. “No. I’m not bored”. That was it. No explanation, no reasoning, no asking if  _ she  _ was bored. Was he actually this slow, or was he just trying to bother her? And either way, how did Draco put up with it for such prolonged amounts of time? 

She zoned out, staring at the dancers’ feet for an unknown amount of time, and didn’t even notice someone take the seat next to her. 

“Hey, Astoria.” She startled and turned towards the voice. It was Lars, looking greatly amused. “Enjoying yourself?” 

“Never had more fun, actually," she said dryly. He smirked.

“I see. So I should probably leave you be and let you continue with your delightful night”.

“Oh, I suppose I can spare a moment or two for the less fortunate”

“You know, I’ve been looking for you, for the past couple weeks,”-her stomach fluttered, not out of attachment, but more because she had no idea what to do in this situation-“but you seemed to run away every time I saw you”.

“Sorry,” she said, and her voice sounded strange. “I’ve been busy”. He smiles like he doesn’t quite believe her, but also doesn’t really care.

“I would’ve asked you to the ball”. Her heart skipped a beat.  _ I wasn’t imagining it. Someone likes me. _

“I would’ve said yes”. She wouldn’t’ve. Draco was right; he was too old, probably had no idea how young she was. She would’ve gone with Crabbe anyways, because she’d have been too scared to say yes to Lars. But now that she was here, she didn’t really care how old he was or that she barely knew him. He was interesting, and even better, he was interested. Lars smiled.

“Well then,” he said, extending a hand, “dance with me?” She nodded, and even though she felt a little bit like she was going to throw up, stood and followed him to the dance floor. She didn’t turn to look at Crabbe as she left, although she did idly wonder if he would even notice her departure.

It took them a moment to attune to each other-the way the Durmstrang students danced was less fluid than she was used to, more sudden and jolting, although no less refined. It was clear that Lars too had been taught to dance as a child, just differently than she and the British purebloods had been. Soon enough, she began to understand the patterns and easily fell into step. They danced several sets, and then sat down with a group of Durmstrang students and their dates, including Viktor Krum and Hermione, who smiled prettily at Astoria in greeting.

Astoria shifted uneasily. She was so  _ nice _ , Hermione, it was hard to dislike her. Astoria would’ve forgiven herself enjoying the company of Hermione’s friends, who were mainly halfbloods and purebloods, even though they were pretentious Gryffindors, but of course it was the muggleborn who was most pleasant to be around. Who, she admitted to herself, had very quickly gotten over her initial prejudice against Astoria as a Slytherin, and since their first conversation in the library seemed to have judged Astoria only by her individual behaviour. 

It made her feel almost guilty, to know that she was harbouring this animosity against the other witch for something out of control, while Hermione had immediately forgiven that which was out of Astoria’s control. But that train of thought was pointless; as nice and smart and talented as Hermione Granger might be, she would always be a muggleborn. She would always be inferior. Her personal characteristics were irrelevant. Astoria looked around the ballroom to distract herself.

Several Slytherins were taking a break from dancing, back at the table with Crabbe and Goyle. Theodore’s date was talking with him, or more accurately at him, while Nott, withdrawn as usual, seemed to be mainly ignoring her. On the other side of the table, Draco furrowed his brow, and then said something to Crabbe, who shrugged and pointed over at Astoria. She quickly diverted her gaze and pretended to be deeply engrossed in the conversation. For some reason, she felt a surge of satisfaction, like she had proven a point to Draco, that she didn’t need his stupid pity or his stupid, stupid friends. Logically, she knew he had been trying to do a good thing when he got her to attend with Crabbe. And she had appreciated that at the time, but for some reason now she resented him for it. She casually glanced over at the table, to see Draco watching them with narrowed eyes. She’d show him.

“I love this song!” she said to Lars (she didn’t). “Let’s dance!” Without needing convincing, he followed her onto the dance floor.

It wasn’t a slow song, but upbeat and fast-paced; the students were doing a great deal more jumping around than actually dancing by this point. Astoria quickly found herself thrown into the crowd, laughing and flailing her arms around in a way that was entirely undignified for a witch of her status. Perhaps the considerable amount of champagne she had drunk had something to do with it. 

The Weird Sisters never slowed back down, seemingly feeding off the crowd’s energy with hit after hit after hit. All the spinning was beginning to make Astoria nauseous, and in one hurling movement, she dashed off the dance floor and grabbed the stone wall to steady herself. Her heart pounded as Lars leaned against the wall next to her, looking entertained.

“Had enough dancing?” He asked, and she responded breathlessly-

“For now”. He smiled, and she suddenly became aware of the way he was looking at her, gaze blazing.

“Do you want to go get some air?” He asked her, and even though she had no experience with it, she was smart enough to know the implications of that offer. For a moment, she thought her legs might give out. But she kept her expression composed, and made a split-second decision to commit to whatever gambit she was playing (because to be totally honest, she wasn’t entirely sure what her goal was).

“Sure,” she said, suddenly aware that, nervous as she was, she might actually throw up all over him. “I need another drink first”. That would help, right? Drinks were supposed to loosen your nerves, or at least that’s what people said. They made their way to a tray, where she finished a drink as quickly as she could without seeming vulgar. 

Just as they were about to leave the Great Hall, she heard a voice behind her.

“Astoria! Lars!” They turned to see Draco Malfoy, slightly out of breath, obviously trying to regain his composure. 

“Hi,” Astoria said warily, knowing only that she was annoyed with him, and not really understanding why.

“Where are you going?” He asked, and there was clearly some weight to his words. 

“To get some air,” said Lars, arms folded, and Draco turned to Astoria. 

“Are you joking?” Her irritation quickly morphed into anger.

“No,” she said coldly, “I’m not. What’s it to you?” He scowled.

“Yea, you’re not doing this.” He turned to Lars, who was glaring at him, but before Draco could speak, Lars cut him off.

“What is your problem? She can make her own decisions”.

“My  _ problem _ ,” said Draco venomously, “is that she is thirteen years old.”-Lars’ eyes widened, and he stepped back slightly-“and you are seventeen. Leave her the fuck alone”.

“ _ You _ leave me alone!” Astoria cried, and Lars looked between them.

“I’m going to leave now”. And he was gone. Draco turned to her.

“I’m getting pretty tired of having to be your keeper”. Astoria’s throat was burning.

“No one asked you to!” She stamped her foot in frustration. “Merlin, why do you always have to butt in where you’re not wanted?”

“You’re being stupid,” Draco said flatly.

“Maybe! But if I want to be stupid then that’s my choice! It’s not your right to tell me whether or not I can be stupid!” She was swaying on her feet. 

“Are you listening to yourself right now?” 

“Ugh!” She wanted to tear her hair out, or scream, or throw her thousand-year-old necklace on the ground. “Just leave me alone! Don’t talk to me anymore!” 

“You don’t mean that”. He sounded almost… amused? Another wave of indignation washed over her.

“There you go again, telling me what to do and how I feel. You know what, Draco? You’re a shitty friend! All you do is force your thoughts on the people around you and expect us all to fall in line. Well I’m sick of it! So listen to me very carefully;  _ I _ know what  _ I _ want better than you do, and what I want is to never speak to you again”. His calm demeanor had melted away, and now his eyes were blazing. 

“Fine. If you’re so sure about it. But let me warn you, Astoria, I am not an enemy you want to have”. She raised her chin.

“I’m not afraid of you”. He took a step closer to her, and it took her a moment to refocus her eyes on him.

“Yet”. 

Astoria spent the rest of the night throwing up.

__   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the girls are fiiiiiighting


	16. infinity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy 2021!

_"No man or woman born, coward or brave, can shun his destiny"_ _\- Homer, the Iliad (810-710 BC)_

Draco and Astoria were no longer on speaking terms, and although she remained too angry to regret it, she had to admit that her life was now significantly duller. Previously, he had interrupted her studies every five minutes in order to overdramatize something or other. Now, she had to figure out how to procrastinate on her own, or even worse, concentrate on school. 

She had now been working on a Charms essay for nearly an hour and a half, tragically uninterrupted. Tired of thinking about the ethics of the memory charm, she put down her quill and glanced around the common room. Theodore Nott, a fourth year who she only barely knew, was buried in a textbook a few seats away from her. Over by the fire a group of seventh years were quietly debating which NEWT coursework, DADA or Transfiguration, was more difficult, and on the other side of the common room the first years seemed to be running a wizard’s chess tournament. With a sigh, she quickly weighed her dignity against her boredom. It didn’t measure up.

“Theodore,” she said. He looked up and then glanced from side to side, like he thought she might be talking to some other Theodore. 

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Potions”. His tone sounded final, and he started to look back at his textbook.

“Want to play Exploding Snap?” Astoria asked randomly. Theodore stared at her for several seconds. There was nothing weird about asking to play cards, right? Why was he looking at her like that? Astoria started brainstorming what she would say when he finally responded and turned her down. Then all of a sudden, he shrugged.

“Sure”. Astoria started.

“Oh, okay, uh, let me just grab some cards from my dormitory”. She ran down the girls hallway and rummaged through her trunk until she found a deck of cards-Ireland themed, from the World Cup. On the floor in front of where they had been sitting, she began to shuffle. 

“I’ll warn you,” she said lightly, “I play to win”. 

“I would hope so,” Theodore said, “You’re a Slytherin”. She smiled as she began to deal.

“The stakes are high then. One of us will prove ourselves more cunning than the other”.

“I mean, it’s Exploding Snap. Cunning is not really a factor. But yes, one of us is more determined to win, and soon we’ll know who”. 

“Hm,” Said Astoria, “Prepare to tell the Sorting Hat it was wrong”. 

“Giving me the honour of your concession speech? How sportsmanlike”. Astoria made a face at him, affronted. 

“We’ll see. 3… 2… 1… Go!” They each flipped out a card, wands at the ready. 

After a fast-paced, very close game, Astoria emerged victorious by a single point. 

“Ha!” She cried ecstatically. “I win! Admit that I belong in Slytherin!” His jaw twitched. 

“Fine. You, Astoria Greengrass, the direct descendant of literally a thousand Slytherins, belong here. Happy?” She smiled superiorly. 

“Perfectly”.

“Good. Because you are  _ not  _ better than me at this game, and I intend to prove it”. He picked up the deck of cards and began to shuffle again. 

Several days later, Astoria sat in History of Magic as Professor Binns droned on about something or other. What was he even talking about? She had been dazed for at least twenty minutes or so, and looked down at her notes. The last thing she had written down was something about the Goblin Rebellions of 1752. Merlin. Who cared? She tried to insert herself back in her daydream.

“Greengrass,” Professor Binns said, and Astoria’s head shot up, but the ghost just kept talking. “was the niece of Minister for Magic Hephaestus Gore. Two years earlier, in 1751,”-evidently Binns was lecturing on an ancestor, not talking to her, but Astoria was just interested enough in her family history to keep listening-“when Hephaestus was Head Auror, she had a vision about the werewolves joining the goblins in their uprising, and wrote to her uncle urging him to take actions to prevent this. He didn’t believe her at the time, and ignored her warnings, resulting in great losses for the wizarding community”. Binns paused, and Astoria took the opportunity to peek at the notes of the student next to her. 

_ ‘1751:’  _ they said,  _ ‘Hephaestus Gore ignores Edwyna Greengrass’ warning about werewolves joining goblins’.  _ Of course. This was about Edwyna, one of wizardkind’s greatest Seers. 

“In 1753,” Binns continued, “She had a vision of a werewolf attack on a Ministry of Magic outpost in Kilkenny Ireland, that, according to her vision, would have killed every official there. This time, Gore listened to her and chose to evacuate the outpost, just hours before the werewolves arrived. This was Edwyna’s first great vision which projected her to fame. She was, at the time, a sixth year student in Slytherin House here at Hogwarts, and at only sixteen was credited with saving 150 lives”. Astoria started. At sixteen, her ancestor permanently cemented her place in magical history just through the Sight. “She did, of course, rise to much greater prominence throughout her career before her untimely death at age 40”. 

_ Everyone _ knew who Edwyna Greengrass was. Astoria had never really considered it before-she had plenty of famous ancestors. But Edwyna was perhaps the most renowned of them all, and she hadn’t really done anything except be born with the Sight… Astoria had that same gift. Perhaps she wasn’t as talented as Edwyna, or perhaps she was. She would never know if she never pursued it. 

Astoria continued to ponder that as she tuned Professor Binns back out, and later headed down to the Great Hall for dinner. In her fear of her gift, she hadn’t even stopped to consider the potential it gave her. She could do great good in the world, and, more pressingly, she could achieve great renown. She could change the world, and achieve the only thing that she had always known she would do: be remembered. 

Sitting across from her, Katherine raised her hand and waved, and Astoria turned around to see who had entered the Great Hall. It was the fourth year boys: Blaise, Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy. Draco’s eyes narrowed as he and Astoria’s gazes met. She continued to watch him, trying to exude steadiness and confidence. Draco muttered something to the other boys and they veered off to sit at the other end of the table. Katherine sighed.

“Can you guys not just get over it? Your little feud is really fucking things up for the rest of us”.

“You’ll live,” Astoria told her distractedly, more focused on glaring at Malfoy from afar. 

Lydia, who had just opened a package from her parents, passed them both chocolate frogs, and Astoria tore open the packaging to reveal Cassandra Trelewaney blinking up at her. Another Seer who the world celebrated. She smiled wryly at the coincidence, and then realized something even more pressing; it wasn’t a coincidence at all. Fate existed. Destiny existed. If the future could be seen, then there was a plan for her life. And receiving a famous Seer on a chocolate frog card right now, when she was considering her possibilities as a Seer, must be a message from the universe about her fate. It had to be. She was a Seer. She was a Seer for a reason, and her destiny was calling her. 

She dropped her fork. Her friends turned to look at her, but she just gripped the chocolate frog card tighter and stood up abruptly. 

“I’m going back to the Common Room” she announced, and half-ran out of the Great Hall. Behind her, she heard her friends questioning what was wrong with her, but she easily ignored it. 

When she arrived at the Slytherin common room, she went straight to her dormitory and into her chest, where she grabbed the wooden box Daphne had given her for Christmas. Opening it gently, she lifted out the crystal ball, and sat cross-legged on her bed, the orb glistening in her hands. A flutter of nervousness sharpened in her stomach as she remembered the terror of every other vision she had had, but she tried to set it aside. She was going to be the greatest Seer of the era. It was worth it. Taking a deep breath, she looked into the orb.

At first, she saw nothing: just the pearly lilac of the crystal itself. But before she could begin to doubt herself, the cloudy interior seemed to swirl around, and dark shadows materialized. They were clearly human figures, although the details were too fuzzy to tell who they were. Three people were quickly joined by a fourth, a bit shorter than the others, and the group travelled together through a strange variety of landscapes, until they began to attack each other. Astoria stared at the crystal ball, transfixed. Two disappeared, and then the final two grabbed hands. One of them seemed to implode, not in the way the others had just faded away, but instead was torn to pieces. And then the orb returned to its pearly exterior. 

Astoria wasn’t ready to admit to the world that she had the Sight; already, Rebecca, Lydia, and Daphne knew, and that felt like way more than enough. For weeks, she stayed up late, or snuck back up to the dorms between classes to practice in secret. One day, after staying up too late practising and somehow sleeping through her roommates attempts to wake her, Astoria was awakened by sunlight streaming through the windows. Blearily blinking her eyes open, she glanced at the clock. 

_ Shit.  _ Breakfast was over, and she had approximately ten minutes to get to Transfiguration. She jumped out of bed and pulled on her uniform at lightning speed, grabbing her books and rushing up out of the dungeons. As she sped up the stairs, the world around her started to blur into fuzzy, black and white static. She stopped moving and grabbed the railing next her to steady herself until the head rush ended.

Her stomach dropped. She was falling-how was she falling? She still couldn’t see anything, but there was wind sharply lashing at her skin, stinging her watery eyes, and she had that awful swooping feeling in her gut. 

She slammed down onto the ground, pain shooting up through her knees at the impact. Her left wrist throbbed as she pushed herself up, looking around. She was surrounded by polished marble walls, glittering with ornate carvings. A warm, light breeze rustled her hair. She didn’t know how, but she was definitely not in Hogwarts anymore. Delicately, Astoria got to her feet, wincing as she stood. Without really knowing why, she felt herself turn and walk further into the building. Instinctively, she descended a dark staircase, placing one foot after the other in an unwilling stupor. 

At the bottom of the stairs stood a group of men in flowing, colourful robes, scattered in a small semi circle. None of them noticed her enter. As Astoria breathed, she felt a strange vapour enter her lungs, sending her reeling slightly. And then she saw the woman. In front of the group was a young woman with a rich red cloth draped over her head, perched on a stool above a crevasse in the stone ground, a cloudy steam rising up from beneath her. The woman’s eyes were closed as she took a deep breath of the fume; subconsciously, Astoria inhaled with her, feeling the strange effects of the vapour, whatever it was.

The woman began to murmur something in a language Astoria didn’t understand. The onlookers eagerly looked forwards as she swayed in some sort of trance. Breathing in more, Astoria inadvertently began to speak in time with the other woman, hissing out the same words in the foreign tongue she didn’t even understand. The men didn’t seem to hear her, but the woman’s eyes snapped open and she turned on her stool to make piercing eye contact with Astoria. The audience didn’t seem to notice- in fact, she realized, they were no longer moving. 

The woman tilted her head, eyes still fixed on Astoria. She was entirely unnerving; her stare felt like it was cutting through her, exploring the deepest depths of her soul and evaluating whether she was worthy or not. Of what, Astoria wasn’t sure. And then, the woman spoke.

“Astoria Greengrass,” she said, now speaking English somehow. “You’ve arrived?” Astoria furrowed her brow.

“You were expecting me?” she queried timidly, and the woman gave an almost imperceptible smile.

“All of us turn up here, eventually”. 

“I… where’s here? And who are you?” The woman gestured around her, as if it was obvious.

“This is the source, of course. Delphi. And I am its keeper”.

“Delphi…” Astoria repeated, the gears in her brain whirring. “The ancient Seers”. The woman inclined her head.

“The Pythia”. 

“But… Delphi is gone. The Pythia have been obsolete for thousands of years”. The woman just continued to watch her levelly. “I’m in the past,” Astoria said, more to herself than the other woman. “That’s impossible. This is impossible!”. She blinked, and suddenly they were standing in the Transfiguration hallway at Hogwarts, still staring at each other.

“We are beyond time, you and I,” said the Pythia, her scarlet cloth vivid against the castle’s walls. “We belong to an instant in history, but we are not confined by it”. And then they were back in the cavern, surrounded by fumes. 

“How do you know all this?” Astoria asked desperately, “You can’t be much older than I am!” The Pythia smirked, suddenly starkly childlike against her previous sage presentation.

“Haven’t I just told you? We have eternity. We are not affected by such temporal obstacles as time. And I am the priestess of Delphi, where all prophecy is born. I am the guardian of our sacred knowledge”. 

“Why am I here? How did I get here?”

“All prophecy is born here, Astoria, and all prophets are too. From Delphi you arose, and to Delphi you will return”.

“What?” She asked. Now the woman had to be being purposefully confusing. The oracle held out her hand, holding a short curved branch with softly pointed leaves along it.

“Laurel,” she said, “take it”. Astoria stepped forwards and accepted the branch, and the woman smiled. “No shelter has Apollo,” she recited, “Nor sacred laurel leaves”.

“The fountains are now silent,” Astoria felt herself join in, though she was unaware she knew the words, and they spoke together. “The voice is stilled. It is finished”. 

“The final Pythia will say that,” the oracle said, “A thousand years after me, two thousand years before you. And Delphi will no longer exist in the physical world. But here it still is. And you are here all the same”..

“I’m… not sure I understand”. The Pythia shrugged.

“You will. Look around you”. Astoria looked at the dark cavern, and the frozen men, draped in their richly sewn cloth. “These men call themselves kings, but they are tyrants”. The oracle shot Astoria a wicked grin. “And I can See their palaces burning”. 

Astoria looked around. She was sitting on the staircase out of the Hogwarts dungeons, back against the wall. A ghost was next to her, spectral legs crossed as he watched her with an expression of curiosity.

“Welcome back!” the ghost chirped. “So? What did you See?” How did he know? Astoria glared at him. She was hardly about to admit her Sight to some random ghost. They were always gossips.

“Excuse me?”

“You were having a vision!” he said excitedly. “Oh, do tell me what you Saw! I am always ever so curious about the future, although I suppose I could just wait and see, but really, where’s the fun in that?”. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Astoria said stubbornly.

“No need to hide it from me, dear. Edwyna was the same, and might I say you are her very spitting image”.

“Edwyna Greengrass?” Astoria asked, her hostility provisionally tempered by curiosity. “The Seer?”

“And your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather’s sister, I believe. Of course, she never had any children of her own, seeing how it would’ve killed her quicker. But there were many more Greengrasses with the same affliction. Your great-great-grandfather was the last one, until you!” Astoria stared at him.

“What do you mean, kill her quicker? Affliction?” The ghost jumped back, floating up into the air above her.

“Oh! You don’t… oh, well, I simply meant that many women died in childbirth in those days. And by affliction I meant the Sight”. She narrowed her eyes.

“Muggle women died, not witches!”

“Oh well, yes, but still, more witches died than they do now”. Astoria scowled.

“Who are you?”

“Why, I am Lord Draben, royal cavalier-”

“What do you know about my family, Lord Draben?” He looked alarmed. 

“Oh, nothing the living Greengrasses don’t know. I’ve merely known a great many of your ancestors, and so I always like to acquaint myself with the new generation”.

“You’re hiding something”.

“No I’m not! I meant to acquaint myself, and now we are acquainted. Goodbye!” He soared off. Astoria flopped her head back against the wall, exhausted by the experiences of the last… well, however long it had been. Feeling something cold and heavy in her hand, she unfurled her palm. She was holding a small, golden laurel branch, threaded onto a dainty chain.

After several hours of sitting in the stairwell in an overwhelmed stupor, Astoria finally found it within herself to make her way up to Professor McGonagall’s office.

“I’m sorry for missing class this morning, Professor,” she said, “I wasn’t feeling well”. 

“Is that so?” McGonagall asked, without looking up from her papers. “Have you been to see Madame Pomfrey?”

“Oh. Er.. well, no. I’m feeling better now, I think.”. The teacher set down her quill and looked up at Astoria through her square glasses. 

“You are, hopefully, aware that is not the most plausible of excuses?” 

“Professor, I swear, I-”

“-You know, I had quite an intriguing conversation with Lord Draben this morning”. She looked at Astoria expectantly. 

All she said was “Oh,” and McGonagall sighed, interlacing her fingers.

“Miss Greengrass, I have no particular regard for Divination. It is an imprecise subject, home to a great deal more charlatans than actual practitioners. But…” It looked as if she was tasting something very bitter. “even I must admit there do exist a few… rare talents”. A brief pause. “I will not assign a detention at this time. It is your responsibility to make up for what you missed; you might consider asking to borrow the notes of one of your peers”. McGonagall looked back down, picking up her quill. Astoria seemed to be dismissed.

“Thank you, Professor”. She slipped out of the classroom.

That weekend, Astoria, Katherine, and Lydia braved the January cold to make their way down to Hogsmeade. She was immensely grateful for the opportunity to joke and laugh and talk about little nothings, a vital distraction from the words of the Pythia that always seemed to be reverberating through her mind. She had plans to meet Rebeeca at the Three Broomsticks later- despite the occasional moments of harmony between her and Lydia, Rebecca’s relationship with Astoria’s other friends, for the most part, remained tense. It was just easier to spend time with them separately. As they flitted between shops, sipping on warm drinks and laughing through the gently falling snow, Astoria was almost able to forget about how unbelievably fucked up her week had been.

As Lydia kicked up a current snow at Katherine, who shrieked, Astoria’s attention was caught by a dark-haired, angular boy with his collar up, hunched against the wind. He looked cold, gloomy, and incredibly lonely.

“One second,” she said to her friends, “I’ll see you guys in a bit”. And she went jogging off.

“Theodore!” She called. “Theodore!” He turned to look at her, seeming slightly bemused. They had hardly spoken since that one night they had played Exploding Snap a couple weeks ago, but all the same Astoria felt a duty to prevent him from being all alone, out in the bitter cold.

“Hi,” He said slowly.

“What are you up to?” She asked.

“Needed a new quill”. 

“Did you come to Hogsmeade alone?” He shrugged.

“Does it matter?”

“Um, honestly? A little bit, yeah”. That rare smile.

“I may have”. Astoria sighed. 

“Alright, we can’t have that. What do you want to do?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Go back to the castle?” 

“Merlin, you’re boring. Alright, come to Honeydukes with me, because I want a sugar quill, and then you can pick where we go next”. He gave her that same long, pondering look, and shrugged again.

“Fine”. They walked the two blocks down to Honeydukes and stepped inside, making their way through the clusters of Hogwarts students. Astoria grabbed a few sugar quills, then joined Theodore in the checkout line.

“Acid pops?” she asked him incredulously. “Really?” 

“They’re good!” He said defensively.

“They burn a hole in your tongue!” 

“Which is easily fixed!”

“Oh my god, you are not a real person”.

“Says the girl with the sugar quills!”

“What’s wrong with sugar quills!?”

“They don’t taste like anything, they’re just hyper sweet, it’s sickening!”

“They are a very normal thing to buy!”

“They’re literally just sugar”. She gaped at him.

“You are holding a  _ lollipop made of acid _ ”. He snorted.

“To each their own, I guess”.

“What? How is that-how are these even comparable?” They reached the counter, and Theodore swiftly paid for both their purchases, before Astoria could even realize he was doing it.  _ Oh my god, _ she thought,  _ does he think this is a date?  _ Is  _ this a date?  _ Despite her sudden nausea, she realized she really didn’t mind the idea. In fact, she considered as they walked to the Three Broomsticks, she was actually quite agreeable to it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'alll the Harry Potter books repeatedly refer to crystal balls as orbs which is just,,,,,,


	17. you and the moon

_ “And all us humans think we’re special, but we’re nothing / but the unshed tears of a distant star / never knowing just who we are” _

_ \- Eric Ealey (Blitzen Trapper), Holy Smokes Future Jokes (2020) _

Sometimes, Astoria just stared at herself in the mirror, looking at that heavy gold pendant she had somehow received from the Oracle of Delphi.  _ We are beyond time _ , the Pythia had said,  _ We have eternity. We belong to an instant in time, but we are not confined by it.  _ It was incomprehensible. The Sight was the ability to see into the future, not transcend time. So why had Astoria been able to See into the past? And not only see what had happened, but speak and interact with a girl who had been dead for thousands of years. And now she had a laurel necklace, a physical gift from a three-thousand year old Seer. It made her head swim just to try and comprehend it all. 

Mainly, she tried not to. She busied herself with school and filled all her spare time with her closest friends, a list that had previously only held Katherine, Lydia, and Rebecca, but was now rapidly growing to include Theodore as well. Astoria was still very unclear on the status of their relationship-was it romantic? Did he just not know how to have normal friends? Was she misreading things? In any case, he was becoming an ever-present figure in her life. 

One day after Divination, Astoria resolved to finally talk with Trelewaney about being a Seer. She was still at least 90% certain the professor was a fraud, but with no idea how to communicate with the Pythia or anyone who  _ actually  _ had the Sight, Trelewaney was her best bet. As her classmates filed out of the room, she stayed put, and then, as the door closed for the last time, said

“Professor, can I talk to you?”

“Oh, certainly, I foresaw you would”. Astoria fought the urge to roll her eyes.

“Alright, um… I think I have the Sight. Like, the actual Sight. I think I’m a Seer”. Trelewaney’s eyes went very wide.

“No…” she breathed. “That’s-I don’t-impossible”.

“What?” 

“Impossible,” said the professor, very firmly this time. “There are never more than a few true Seers at a time, and there are already enough of us”. Astoria gaped at her.

“You said a few months ago the stars foretold a great Seer being born around our birth year!”

“They were  _ favourable  _ for it, Miss Greengrass, that doesn’t necessarily mean one was. Are you really proclaiming yourself a cosmically chosen Seer?” No, but she was  _ a  _ Seer. No, she didn’t believe her talent was written in the stars, but all the same… she had spoken to a Seer from three thousand years ago. She hadn’t just seen the past, she had been  _ in  _ it, interacting with it. She was certain the Pythia had had a vision of her, too, all those millenia ago.

“It’s possible” was all she said, and Trelewaney spluttered.

“The Sight, the born Sight,” she said grandly, “is incredibly rare. I inherited mine from the great Cassandra; it is not something you can just  _ claim _ !” 

Astoria stared at her. As far as she could tell, Trelewaney had no more of the Sight than the Blast-Ended Skrewts the Care of Magical Creatures students were always complaining about, and yet she had the audacity to lecture Astoria about not claiming what wasn’t hers? Biting back her anger, she answered carefully.

“There is a history of Sight in my family as well. Edwyna Greengrass-”  
“-Oh, I see.” The professor cut her off. “I understand. You heard that I inherited my gift from my ancestor, and it gave you the idea that you could as well. I empathize with your desire my dear, but I’m afraid you’re experiencing delusions of grandeur”.

“Thanks for your time,” Astoria said derisively. “I know you’re a very busy person”. She stormed out of the classroom. Apparently she would be teaching herself to See. 

Following dinner, Astoria spent several hours looking for more resources on Divintation, to no avail. It seemed every book she could find was just like her textbook- an explanation of different techniques, to be used by anyone, not any help on developing the Sight when one already had it. Disheartened, she headed up to the Common Room, where Pansy Parkinson sat with a group of fourth year girls. Astoria waved at them and went to sit a few chairs away.

“Astoria!” Pansy called brightly. She hadn’t even sat down yet. 

“Yeah?” The girls waved her over, and Astoria warily obliged. 

“Settle something for us, will-you like the Weird Sisters, right?” She blinked.

“Everyone likes the Weird Sisters”. Pansy laughed.

“Okay, good. Didn’t want to assume. So we need you to settle-sit down, oh my god, are you just going to stand there?” Still unsure what was happening, Astoria took a seat. “Ok, so we have been trying all fucking day”- a chorus of laughter from the fourth years -“to figure this out. And as you know, the world’s greatest love song is…”

“Either Magic Works by the Weird Sisters or You’ve Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me by Celestina Warbeck”. Pansy nodded.

“Of course, the classic argument. But which do  _ you  _ think is better?” 

“Oh, Magic Works, obviously”. Pansy wrinkled her nose.

“Okay, wow, I don’t have the energy to explain to you how wrong you are, but just know that I could, okay?” Astoria laughed.

“I’ll take your word for it”.

“Good. So anyways, Tracey seems to fancy herself a musician, and decided to combine them into one song-”

“Oh, Merlin, no” Astoria interrupted her, to a chorus of laughter, and Pansy grimaces.

“Yes, unfortunately. And now, we’re all way too invested and we really think we have it down to two possible winners here, and we need your vote”. Tracey Davis dropped the pin on a record player, and Astoria dutifully listened to both options. She grimaced.

“You guys, I-those are both just so bad”. Pansy raised her eyebrows. 

“You think you could do better?” She gestured at the record player. “Go ahead”. Pansy demonstrated the spell they had been using, and Astoria quickly found herself pulled into hours of forcing the songs together, trying to find a good mix. Pansy was being uncharacteristically friendly, but then she had been for a while For whatever reason, since Astoria had fallen out with Draco, Pansy seemed to like her more. 

The hours slipped by, and one by one the fourth year girls seemed to give up hope on combining two entirely incompatible songs, and drifted up to their dormitory until Astoria was left alone in the Common Room. She didn’t want to go to bed- it was hard to sleep these days, as her visions got more and more vivid. She had made her decision to pursue the Sight and she would stand by it, if only because she made a point to always follow through. But it was taking its toll on her too. Sometimes she didn’t want to be thrust into a world she didn’t understand. Sometimes she just wanted to interact with the world normally.

So she sat in the Common Room, knees tucked up on a plushy armchair, staring into the dwindling fire. Occasionally, dark shadows would whorl past the windows, opening up into the ghostly glow of the Black Lake. A few times she attempted to look at her Charms textbook, but found herself unable to either study or tire. So she just sat. 

After several hours, in the dead of the night, she heard footsteps padding down the boys’ hallway. She squinted to try and identify the figure that was now picking its way through the Common Room.

“Theodore?” She asked. He jumped.

“Merlin! Why are you out here?” 

“Where are you going?” she asked, ignoring his question. He coloured.

“Astronomy Tower” 

“Why?” He mumbled something. “Sorry?”

“To see the stars” he said, just barely audible, and Astoria found herself smiling.

“Cool. Can I come?” He gave her a lingering look.

“It’s cold. You’ll need a cloak”. 

“I’ll grab one”. Astoria dashed down the hall to her dormitory and grabbed her winter cloak, before returning to the Common Room where Theodore stood waiting. She scooped up the blanket she had been using, tucked it under her arms, and followed him out into the dark castle.

“Lumos,” he said, lighting the tip of his wand.

“Is that a good idea?” She asked. “It’s past curfew”. He shrugged.

“Prefect patrols are never out this late, and the teachers will all be asleep. Hopefully”.

“Hopefully?” In the dim light, she thought she saw him roll his eyes.

“Relax”. He was right; they made their way to the Astronomy Tower without incident, and they stepped out into whipping winter wind. Astoria hastily buttoned up her cloak and looked at Theodore, who seemed unbothered.

“Are you not cold?”.

“I don’t get cold easy”.

“It’s  _ January _ ”. He shrugged. “First the Acid Pops, now the cold, do you like anything normal? What’s your Quidditch team?”

“Caerphilly Catapults”.

“Merlin”.

“They caught the snitch in record time!”

“Wasn’t that in the 20s?”

“And no one’s beaten it for 70 years”. Astoria smiled.

“You’re quite the anomaly”. 

“So I’ve been told”. They settled down, leaning against the parapet, and Astoria wrapped the blanket around herself, blessing her foresight to have brought it. Shrugging away even the tiniest thought about foresight, she turned to Theodore.

“How often do you come here?”

“Pretty frequently, when there’s no classes”. He flung his head upwards, and Astoria followed his gaze. “It reminds me that we’re inconsequential”. She allowed herself to be mesmerized by the cosmos, the rich fabric of the sky glittering with an almost impossible amount of stars. She had thought this might be a respite from ponderings about time and fate and Divination, but she had forgotten to factor in the sheer majesty of a perfectly dark sky. Inconsequential, indeed.

“Do you believe in fate? I mean, do you think our stories are really written up there?”

“No,” said Theodore solidly. “Nothing’s planned. Nothing’s predetermined”.

“It’s kind of a sad idea, though, isn’t it? That nothing’s meant to be. If you find the right person, or, or end up on the right path, it’s all on accident. It’s entirely more likely that you won’t”.

“No such thing as the right person, or the right path. Nobody would have planned a world like this. It’s all just entropy”. Astoria stared at him.

“What’s entropy?” 

“Oh, um, it’s a muggle thing. Nevermind”. She furrowed her brows.

“Why do you know about muggle things?” She meant  _ I thought you were one of us _ . 

“I don’t. I just read it in a book in the library once”. He meant  _ I am.  _ He was lying about why he knew about entropy, and they both knew it. But Astoria had been there herself before, caught knowing a little too much about things that were supposed to be beneath her. She didn’t know why it happened. She didn’t know why she found herself drawn to things that simply weren’t acceptable for a daughter of the sacred twenty-eight. She knew it wasn’t good or appropriate or becoming of her lineage, and as a Nott, Theodore’s bloodline was just as sacred as her own. But she was in no position to criticize him for it, so she chose to accept his explanation. He shivered, and she smiled. The boy was human.

“You cold?” He shook his head stubbornly.

“I-”

“-don’t get cold easy. But you do get cold”. She slid closer, wrapping part of the blanket around him. He didn’t complain. They stared up at the stars in silence, clutching the blanket against the icy wind. Slowly, Astoria felt her eyelids become heavy. Holding back a yawn, she let her head drop onto Theodore’s shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her, hand warm and heavy on her waist. Astoria tried to focus on the stars, not the fluttering in her stomach. She searched for something, anything, to say.

“You never seem to hang out with us” she finally commented. “Why are you always off away from the group?”

“I prefer it that way,” he responded, “you’ve become something of an outsider yourself recently”. She had. Although her friendship with the other third year girls remained strong, the fourth years only seemed to acknowledge her when Draco wasn’t around. She scowled slightly. 

“I guess so”. He seemed to sense her annoyance at the fact. 

“It’s a good thing, really. They’re all so petty, with their in-fighting and the constant need to prove they’re better than each other”.

“I find it hard to believe that you’re an unambitious Slytheirn”.

“That’s the thing, thought, it’s not ambition! There’s nothing ambitious about wanting to be the most popular fourth-year. You want to do great things in the real world? No one cares whether your Hogwarts classmates deferred to you”. 

“So what is real greatness then, to you?”

“To be remembered”. He said simply. “Isn’t that what we all want, at the end of the day?” She shifted her head up to look at him, just as he turned down towards her, face illuminated only by the light of the moon. His eyes scanned her face, like he was searching for something.

“More than anything”. It was barely a whisper. Their gazes met for another long, lingering second. And then Theodore closed the gap between them, pressing his lips against hers. Astoria melted into him, open-mouthed and breathless, his arms wrapped around her, pulling her impossibly closer. 

**February, 1995**

It was the weekend before Valentine’s Day, which fell on a Monday this year, and Astoria was busy getting ready for her first-ever official date. Going to the Yule Ball with Crabbe most certainly did  _ not  _ count, and while she and Theodore had been spending time together for the past couple weeks, there was nothing to do at Hogwarts that could really count as an actual date. But it was a Hogsmeade weekend, and it was the day before Valentine’s Day, and this was the real deal, for better or for worse. 

To be honest, she hadn’t really been thinking that much of it until this morning, when her roommates started squealing about makeup and clothes and that this was, apparently, a really big deal. She wished they had informed her of that fact a little earlier, so she could’ve had the chance to stress about it in advance. Now she had to do it all in one morning, and the nervous butterflies that had suddenly emerged were borderline nauseating. 

“The shirt doesn’t matter that much though, does it?” Lydia asked. “I mean, it’s cold out. It’ll be hidden under your cloak the whole time”. 

“Yes it does!” moaned Astoria from her bed. “What if we go to a cafe? I’ll either have to take my cloak off or look like a crazy person wearing a winter cloak in a warm cafe?” 

“You can’t be too dressed up though,” recommended Katherine. “That’s equally weird. You don’t want to look like you’re taking this more seriously than you should”.

“Well how seriously should I be taking it?” The third-years looked at each other blankly. None of them had been on a real date either. Astoria pressed her face into her pillow and screamed. She took a deep breath and sat up. 

“Okay, you know what? I’m wearing a sweater. I am opening my trunk and I will be wearing the first sweater I grab”. She pulled out a geometric patterned knitted sweater and tugged it on, choosing not to look at her friends’ expressions. “I will not be taking any comments. Olivia, can you help me with a glamour spell?” Oliva was gifted at Charms, and if anyone needed a glamour cast, Olivia was your best bet. She nodded and flourished her wand as she muttered the incantation. Astoria glanced at herself in the mirror. Good enough. She grabbed her cloak and headed down to the Common Room, where Theodore was waiting for her with a soft smile on his face. 

In Hogsmeade, Theodore and Astoria meandered through the streets, talking and laughing as they dropped in and out of stores until they came across a bubblegum pink cafe, full of Hogwarts students holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes, heart-shaped confetti fluttering down onto their heads. Theo swallowed.

“Do you, erm…” Astoria looked into Madam Puddifoot’s, littered with gaudy decorations and fluttering cupids, and felt the heat rise to her cheeks. 

“No,” she said, “that’s.. a lot”. He nodded. “Unless you want to!” She added quickly, “becuase, you know, I don’t really mind, it’s just if you don’t want to either then I’d rather not- I mean”. 

“Let’s go somewhere else” said Theodore, and she followed him away with relief.

They ended up at a little cafe on the edge of Hogsmeade. It hadn’t been decorated for the holiday, which Astoria preferred. They ordered drinks and then took seats across from each other at a rickety wooden table, frost creeping across a nearby window. She wrapped her hands around the mug, trying to coax some warmth back into her fingers after the long time outdoors, and looked across the table at Theo, with his angular face framed by soft curls, and found herself smiling almost involuntarily. 

Back at Hogwarts, after dinner, Astoria had the misfortune to encounter Malfoy and his goons, who all seemed to be in exceptionally bad moods, and determined to inflict them on everyone else. When she entered the Common Room, they were entertaining themselves by taunting some poor first year, Astoria rolled her eyes.

“Come on Draco, you can’t find a Gryffindor or something?” He raised his brows. 

“What do you care?” Astoria took a seat and opened a book.

“I don’t”. But they had abandoned the first-year and moved over to her. Great.

“You always have to interfere with other people’s business”. She snapped her book closed.

“Are you fucking joking? You can’t go ten minutes without butting in somewhere you’re not wanted”. 

“Somehow you’re the only one who expresses that sentiment”. She scoffed.

“I guess I’m the only one who’s not afraid of you”. 

“Hmm. Goyle are people  _ too afraid  _ to tell me how they  _ truly  _ feel, like Tori here seems to think?” Goyle gulped. 

“...no?” Draco turned back to Astoria with a satisfied smile.

“I stand corrected,” she told him with a smirk, “no one’s afraid of you. You’re about as intimidating as the average first-year Hufflepuff. Take it from Goyle”. Draco scowled and turned to his friend, whose eyes widened.

“I meant they are. You’re very scary”. Malfoy gave him a withering look 

“You made Goyle mess up. Very difficult to do. Pat yourself on the back”. 

“Ohhh. Don’t blame him,  _ you  _ walked right into that”. She gave Goyle an encouraging smile. “You’re doing great, Gregory”. Malfoy rolled his eyes. 

“You’re insufferable”. She smiled icily. 

“You and me both, Draco. I’ll own that”. He gave her a look equally cold as her own.

“Don’t group yourself in with me. You’re an embarrassment”. 

“Really?” She asked angrily. “In what way? What could I possibly have done?”

“Look at who you’ve been running around with for the past month and a half. You’re half a blood traitor already”. Seething, Astoria whipped out her wand.

“Langlock!” she cried, and Draco made a choking noise. She smiled slowly. “Say that again and see where I put your tongue next” He continued to make a strangling sound, and she came to her senses. If he had to go to the Hospital Wing to get it removed she’d be served with a long detention. “Finite Incantatem”. It was the wrong choice- his wand was already in his hand.

“Furnunculus!” Astoria didn’t need to bring her hand to her forehead to know it would be completely covered in pimples. 

“Calvorio!” She shouted back the instant scalping hex, and Draco brought his hand to his freshly balded head in horror. His eyes darkened.

“FLIPENDO!” Astoria flew backwards, slamming into the wall of the Common Room as the amassing crowd scrambled out of the way. Fine. He wanted to duel? She would fucking duel. 

“Tarantallegra!” she cried from the floor, and as Draco danced involuntarily, she got to her feet. “Baubillious!” A beam of lightning shot from her wand to Draco’s chest. He doubled over and fixed her with a stunned expression. Good. Astoria had learned a lot of spells from her father, although that hadn’t been his intention. She finally had a chance to use them. If he wanted to duel her, she had plenty of tricks up her sleeve. 

“Enough!” shouted a prefect, shoving his way between them before Astoria could press her advantage even further. “Wands down. Now!” Astoria and Draco made wary eye contact, and then the prefect scoffed and their wands went flying out of their hands towards him. He caught them easily. “What the hell are you doing? Duelling in the Common Room, are you bloody insane?” 

“She started it,” muttered Draco, and the prefect turned to him murderously.

“I don’t give a fuck. We’re going to Snape’s office. Now”.

__   
  



	18. live and let live

_ “Anger is like fire. It burns all clean”.- Maya Angelou (via Jeffrey M Elliot), Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989) _

Draco and Astoria were each assigned two weeks’ detention (separately, because Snape wasn’t a fool), and promptly sent to the Hospital Wing. No points were deducted from Slytherin, but Snape promised there would be for any further offences. So they went back to ignoring each other.

Astoria ended up being released from her final detention because it conflicted with the second Triwizard task. Although this decision was almost certainly for Snape’s own benefit, as he’d have had to miss the task as well, she still managed to be satisfied in the fact that Draco would have to serve one extra detention. Technically, and this was very much a technicality, Draco was now forcibly assuming the majority of the blame for the duel. So there. 

As the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs clamoured for the front rows, the Slytherins settled into slightly distant seats. Astoria found herself with the majority of the third and fourth years, excluding Rebecca, who was with her Ravenclaw friends, and Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who had somehow secured themselves spots right up front next to a horde of Weasleys. That irked Astoria more than she cared to admit, which she rationalized as a disregard for house values. Slytherins knew there was value in hierarchy, and yes, most of the time Slytherins and purebloods were at the top of that hierarchy. But the whole reason it was important was because it made sense. And in just this case, Slytherin logically ranked below Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, because they had a champion from their house to cheer on. Draco and his goons should have sat with the rest of Slytherin and allowed proper priority. Or at least, that’s why she thought it bothered her.

Either way, it was sort of a blessing; the animosity between her and Malfoy meant that his presence would certainly have divided the group. They’d probably be sitting by years, and Astoria quite liked that she was able to sit with not just her dormmates, but Theo and Daphne too. 

“Merlin!” Exclaimed Katherine, pointing down to the banks of the lake where the judges sat. “Look at Potter”. Harry Potter was sprinting across the shore, coming to a skidding halt in front of the golden tent. There was a chorus of laughter.

“D’you think he’s trying to make it seem like he doesn’t care, or he’s really just that stupid?” asked Lydia, to a few more snickers.

“Speaking as someone who takes potions with him,” said Theodore dryly, “he’s really just that stupid. Probably overslept”. Astoria shook her head in amazement. The Triwizard Tournament was the opportunity of a lifetime- she couldn’t possibly imagine showing up late. If it were her, she probably would have arrived to every task several hours early out of sheer nerves. She wondered if the nonchalance was a Gryffindor trait, or just the product of growing up famous, thinking he was invincible because he was the Boy Who Lived. She realized she didn’t know any Gryffindors well enough to tell.

“Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle!” The booming voice of Ludo Bagman interrupted her train of thought. “They have precisely one hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One… two… three!” The scream of the whistle pierced the air, and the crowd seemed to lean forwards all at one. Victor Krum dashed into the lake while Fleur and Cedric seemed to cast some sort of spell on themselves. Potter fumbled with his shoelaces. Krum waved his wand, transfiguring his head into a shark to a roar of applause and then dove into the lake. At the same time, Fleur and Cedric were splashing in, faces obscured by some sort of fuzzy barrier. Harry shoved something in his mouth and then walked slowly into the lake. All the other champions had disappeared underwater, and Potter was just standing there aimlessly, waist-deep in the Black Lake.

Astoria wondered if she looked as gleeful as she felt. It was one of the most genuinely hilarious sights she had ever had the pleasure to witness. Perfect Potter, drenched in icy February water, his robe floating around him. He hadn’t worn a bathing suit, like every other champion. He was so ridiculously underprepared, and as the spectators laughed around her, Astoria thought she might finally be witnessing the humbling of Harry Potter. He would find out he couldn’t fly through life without any effort forever. Maybe he was finally going to have to start putting in the effort like the rest of them. But then Potter clapped his hands to his throat like he was choking and then flung himself into the lake. Apparently not.

A first year Slytherin hooted in delight, clapping her hands together enthusiastically. She jumped out of her seat in front of the third and fourth years, and Astoria knew she wasn’t the only one scowling. Without even thinking, she reached forwards and yanked on the girl’s braid. The first-year yelped and turned around in alarm.

“Don’t ever cheer for Harry Potter,” Zabini told the girl sternly, and she nodded and quickly took her seat again. 

“All of our champions have reached the water!” announced Bagman joyously. “As a recap, for our dear spectators, at the end of the last task, the four champions retrieved a golden egg. Hidden within this egg was a clue about their endeavour today. Some of you may have witnessed a champion open his egg, and I do feel sorry for you if you did! If the eggs were opened above water, they let loose a horrible screeching noise. However, the key to unlocking the message, which it looks like all of our champions deciphered, was to open the egg underwater!” 

“What the fuck?” asked Pansy, as Daphne said

“This tournament is so fucking weird”. They were right. It all seemed nonsensical.

“Now for this task, the person most important to each of our champions is being held captive by the merfolk of the Black Lake. The champions are competing to rescue their hostage first. Representing Durmstrang, Victor Krum will be rescuing Hermione Granger!” The crowd buzzed. 

“Granger!?” Asked Zabini in disgust. 

“That’s unreasonable,” said Theodore, “they’ve been dating for what, two months? How can she possibly be the most important person to him?” As the group murmured their assent, Theo’s eyes widened slightly, and he looked at Astoria with a bit of trepidation. She snorted.

“Yeah that’s honestly really embarrassing”. They were very much on the same page about that one.

“What’s embarrassing is that it’s  _ Granger _ ”. Said Pansy derisively. “Anyone else, maybe I could understand”.

“Krum has chosen a partial transfiguration in order to reach the depths of the lake!” Ludo continued. “Although word has it, it was really a full transfiguration gone wrong. Secondly, representing Beauxbatons, Fleur Delacour will be rescuing her sister Gabrielle”. Astoria looked at Daphne and trapped her in a sideways hug.

“You’d be  _ my  _ most important person, Daph”. Her sister squirmed her way free.

“Gross. You wouldn’t be mine”. Astoria gasped dramatically, clutching her hand to her chest as Bagman continued.

“We’ve just seen Fleur use the Bubble-Head Charm, which will give her a continuous supply of oxygen underwater! That same spell was used by Cedric Diggory, representing Hogwarts”-the crowd roared-“who will be rescuing Cho Chang”. Bagman paused for the  _ awww _ s from the spectators. “Finally, representing Hogwarts, Harry Potter will be rescuing Ron Weasley”. Not surprising- Weasley and Potter were never see without each other, and everyone knew Potter didn’t have any family of his own. Astoria caught herself feeling just a moment’s empathy for Hermione, whose best friends seemed to have chosen each other over her. She pushed it out of her mind. There was no sense in feeling sorry for mudbloods. “I believe we have just seen him ingest Gillyweed, a plant which your Herbology professors will remind you gives the ingestor fish-like qualities”. He checked his watch. “The champions have about 50 minutes remaining!” The crowd cheered raucously, and then slowly calmed. Everyone watched the surface for a few moments.

“So what, now we just stare at the lake for an entire hour?” said Astoria incredulously. “They couldn’t set up cameras?”. A fifth-year Slytherin sitting in front of them put her head in her hands.

“THIS IS SO POORLY PLANNED!” She cried, and there were murmurs of agreement. In front of them, the first-year girl had been staring at her feet since she had had her hair pulled by Astoria and been told off by Zabini. Astoria felt a tiny tinge of regret. She hadn’t intended to upset her that much.

The crowd grew more restless as the minutes trickled by, and then finally,  _ finally,  _ the sparkling hair of Fleur Delacour shot up from under the water. She began to swim towards the banks, and the rising cheer stopped dead.

Her hostage was not with her. As she moved through the water, she left a trail of blood.

The crowd hushed to an anxious silence. What had happened down there? How had Fleur been injured? And where was her sister? Madame Maxine trudged into the lake to meet Fleur and effortlessly hoisted her out of the water. Astoria clapped her hand to her mouth. A few screams rang through the air, and the crowd’s silence broke. There was a massive, bloody gash across Fleur’s torso.

“What was-”

“-did you see that?-”

“-must’ve been attacked-”

“-the giant squid, or merpeople-”

“-so much blood-”

“-another champion?”

As the spectators chattered tensely, Madam Pomfrey bustled around Fleur, waving her wand around and dropping some kind of potion into the wound. It wasn’t long before Fleur was sitting up.

“There you have it folks, Fleur Delacour has been mainly healed! Let’s all give a big round of applause for the invaluable Madam Pomfrey, shall we?” Called Ludo Bagman. The applause was tentative- everyone was far more concerned about how she had been injured in the first place. “Miss Delacour reports that she was attacked by Grindylows before reaching her hostage. It is unfortunate, but rest assured that Gabrielle Delacour will be completely unharmed”. Grindylows. Not exactly as exciting as it could have been (Astoria had nearly wagered on an attack from another champion), but probably for the better.

Just as the excitement of Fleur’s return wore off, something even better happened. Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang emerged from the depths. The Hogwarts students jumped out of their seats in celebration, and a victorious chant of ‘DIGGORY! DIGGORY!’ broke out. Ludo Bagman appeared to be waiting for the crowd to quiet down, and when they persisted, he cleared his throat several times. 

“Cedric Diggory has returned with his hostage at a time of sixty-one minutes. Although this is slightly outside the time limit, he is the first successful champion!” The cheering picked up again as Madam Pomfrey wrapped Cho and Cedric in black blankets. 

“Diggory’s not half bad” appraised Zabini lazily as his _SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY_ pin twinkled on his chest. “I could’ve been faster, but all in all not too shabby a performance”. 

Only a few minutes later, Hermione and Krum emerged. As she gained consciousness she seemed to panic at the shark head next to her, flailing her arms around until Krum lifted his wand and transfigured back into himself.

“With a time of one hour and ten minutes, Victor Krum has rescued his hostage!” cried Bagman. Potter was last, Astoria realized triumphantly. He was going to lose at something. 

But as the minutes slipped by, her gratified feelings gave way to a worry about his safety that was, to say the least unexpected. It had been nearly an hour and a half. Every other champion was long returned. Fleur had been seriously injured- could Harry be bleeding out at the bottom of the Black Lake somewhere? She knew better than to voice her concern, which even she herself disapproved of, but she clenched her seat tightly. What an awful way to go- dying slowly from blood loss, suffering until his Gillyweed wore off and he suddenly drowned. 

The morbid image was, thankfully, just that, and not a prophetic vision. Potter emerged with Weasley and a young girl whose shimmering blonde hair instantly marked her as Fleur’s sister. 

“Why does he have both of them?” she asked aloud, and Pansy scoffed.

“Because he’s Harry fucking Potter and he always has to play the hero”.

“Well it won’t work for him this time,” said Katherine, “because she wasn’t actually in danger. It was just a stupid decision”.

“It exposes how performative he is”. Theodore was always insightful. “He insists on presenting that noble image even when he doesn’t need to, and it just shows that he cares more about looking like a hero than being one”. 

“Imagine losing something as prestigious as the Triwizard Cup for the sake of your image. It’s completely irrational,” Lydia commented, and the Slytherins nodded, but Astoria furrowed her brow.

“For us, sure, but not for Harry Potter”. Everyone looked at her, and she blushed slightly. “If one of us were in this competition, it would be our greatest achievement. Winning the cup would bring instant fame, instant renown. It would give us eternal glory, like Dumbledore said. But Triwizard Winner would just be another notch in the belt for the Boy Who Lived. A fun sidenote, not a crowning achievement. So for him, it’s more important to stay being seen as the virtuous Harry Potter than to win”. Pansy scowled.

“Merlin, you just reminded me why I hate him so fucking much”. Astoria wanted to be as resentful as her companions, but she couldn’t help the feeling that she was wrong. That she was projecting. If she was Harry Potter, that’s what she’d do. But Gryffindors were stubborn and reckless and they didn’t think things through. Maybe Harry really was so bull-headed and idealistic that he actually believed in what he was doing. 

But probably not. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision,” cried Ludo Bagman, his voice reverberating through the sounds. The students quieted instantly. “Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows… Miss Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, was attaacked by Grindylows as she approached her goal, and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her 25 points”. There was a smattering of polite applause. 

“Absurd,” said Katherine derisively. “If you fail the task, you should get no points”. But Astoria wasn’t sure Katherine could’ve done any better herself.

“Mr. Cedric Diggory, who also used the Bubble-Head Charm, was the first to return with his hostage, though he returned one minute outside the time limit of an hour. We therefore award him forty-seven points”. The crowd screamed in support, and everyone’s  _ SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY  _ pins seemed to glow just a little bit brighter with the energy. “Mr. Victor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration, which was nevertheless effective, and was second to return with his hostage. We award him forty points”. The necessary applause. “Mr. Harry Potter used Gillyweed to great effect. He returned last, and well outside of the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Mr. Potter was the first to reach his hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his determination to return all the hostages to safety, not merely his own. Most of the judges feel that this shows moral fibre and merits full marks. However… Mr. Potter’s score is forty-five points”. 

Sighs of exasperation and disappointment. As the Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and Beauxbatons students exploded into cheers, Astoria found herself dumbfounded, clapping slowly and angrily alongside Slytherin House and most of the Durmstrang Students. It felt like there had finally been the potential for justice, for fairness, for Potter to have to play by the same rules as everyone else. But Hogwarts, it seemed, would never change. Whatever sliver of sympathy Astoria might have been feeling was easily eroded away. He always had to get off easy. There were always exceptions when it came to Harry Potter- Dumbledore was always always willing to coddle and adapt and bend over backwards to make sure Potter never lost at anything. 

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” said Pansy, and the group sat in relative silence, trying to come to terms with the fact that nothing would ever be fair, and nothing would ever change. A sad sort of resignation hung in the air.

“I hate this school,” said Theodore emphatically, and Astoria dropped her head on his shoulder with a long sigh.

In the next few days, Astoria made the point to find Vicente Ferreirra in the hallway to discuss the fate of their respective champions. But despite Fleur’s performance in the Second Task, he seemed to be in good spirits. 

“Oh yes, Fleur is behind. Maybe she’ll make it up in the Third Task, maybe she won’t. But I am becoming more and more convinced that neither of our champions will win at all, and it will be the Boy Who Lived instead”. Astoria glared at him.

“Cedric is tied with Potter”.

“Oh, yes, but the key part is that Harry Potter could have beaten him. He  _ chose  _ not to. He cared about the other hostages, and he even saved little Gabby Delacour when he didn’t need to. We’ve decided we quite like him at Beauxbatons”. 

“That’s exactly what he wants!”

“So?”

“So!? The only reason he behaves that way is for appearances!”

“And even if that was true, would it matter? The good deed still gets done, does it not?” 

“It’s dishonest”. 

“Have you been honest every day of your life?” Astoria resisted the urge to stamp her foot. Why didn’t he get it? 

“Fine!” She huffed. “Think what you want to think. But Cedric Diggory is going to win either way”. Vicente laughed lightly, in his nonchalant way that was beginning to grate on her nerves more and more.

“Seems unwise to hate Harry Potter,” 

“Well, you don’t know Harry Potter”. Another airy laugh. 

“Are you sure you do?”

**March, 1995**

Every Friday morning before breakfast, a barn owl swooped into the window of the third year girls’ dormitory with three copies of  _ Witch Weekly _ . Katherine, Lydia, and Astoria each subscribed, although honestly sometimes Astoria wondered why she bothered. Today was one of those days; the cover was some witch or other smiling brightly with a sponge cake. It was something someone’s mother might have cared about, but she certainly didn’t. So she shoved the magazine into her bag with the idea that she might flip through it later, if she got bored in class, and headed down to the Great Hall. 

Pansy soon strolled in with a spring in her step and wicked gleam in her eye, and Astoria felt her heartbeat quicken just slightly. She could only hope that whatever was making the fourth year so excited had nothing to do with her. Pansy’s gaze caught sight of the third years and she strode towards them. Astoria took a sip of coffee with dread, and Pansy flopped into a seat across from Katherine and Astoria.

“Have you heard?” She asked, eyes sparkling. Astoria and Katherine looked between each other and shook their heads. Pansy’s eyes sparkled as she waved her copy of  _ Witch Weekly.  _ “Page 7”. Astoria pulled her copy out of her bag and rifled through it. On pages 7 and 8, the centre of the magazine, was a large photo of Harry Potter with the title ‘ _ HARRY POTTER’S SECRET HEARTACHE _ ’. 

“I was quoted,” Pansy told them, jabbing her finger next to her name on Astoria’s copy. “I was called pretty and vivacious. In Witch Weekly!” 

“When did you get interviewed for this?” asked Astoria as she read.

“After the Second Task. You all went to the castle, but  _ I  _ went to find the press”. Astoria raised her eyebrows. She wanted to say something like  _ why? None of this is about you.  _ Or  _ you’re really that desperate for attention?  _ But there was no reason to pick a fight with Pansy if you didn’t need to. In fact, it was a decidedly bad idea. 

“This,” said Katherine, after she had finished skimming it, “is the best article I’ve ever read”. 

“Imagine Witch Weekly calls you a slut,” Astoria could admit it was pretty funny, just by virtue of its absurdity, because it wasn’t her. “You’re literally fourteen-”

“-and the entire wizarding world thinks you’re a whore,” Pansy finished mirthfully. “I am a genius, I know”. Across the Great Hall, Hermione sat with Potter and Weasley, holding a book in one hand and a piece of toast in the other. Either she didn’t know yet, or she was exceptional at hiding her emotions. All of a sudden, Pansy jumped out of her seat, snatching up her bag.

“See you guys later!” She darted halfway across the Great Hall and fell into step with Draco, Crabbe and Goyle, who began to laugh as Pansy spoke to them. Astoria watched as they moved towards another section of the Slytherin table, accidentally catching Draco’s eyes. His laugh stopped abruptly, and then he turned back to look at his friends. Katherine rolled her eyes.

“Would you please stop gazing mournfully at Malfoy and just make up already?”

“I do not gaze at Malfoy!” 

__   
  



	19. take it or leave it

_ “The highest compact we can make with our fellow is – 'Let there be truth between us two for evermore'. "– Ralph Waldo Emerson, Conduct of Life (1872) _

A week or so later, Professor Snape instructed Astoria to stay back after Potions, which she did with some trepidation.

“Have I done something wrong, Professor?” She asked, but he appeared not to hear her.

“You are to have the honour of meeting with our headmaster”.

“I-what?” 

“Follow me”. He said shortly, striding towards the door as she scrambled to gather up her things. She half-ran after him through the hallways, struggling to keep up with his long stride.

“Professor?” She managed to ask, “Do you know what this is about? Am I in trouble?” After a few minutes of incessant queries, he stopped abruptly and turned towards her, his cold, cruel face neutral as ever. 

“Perhaps you should practice patience, Miss Greengrass”. She did not feel ashamed, but knew better than to continue to bother Snape, and followed after him in relative silence. They stopped ahead of a large stone gargoyle on the second floor.

“Fizzing Whizbee” Snape drawled, and the gargoyle nodded and moved to the side. A large spiral staircase began to rise out of the ground, and Snape looked at Astoria. “Well?” Taken slightly aback, she stepped onto the staircase and looked down as she rose above Snape’s head. When it stopped moving, she tentatively walked the last few steps and entered the room.

It was large and circular, with several tables full of curious silver trinkets that would occasionally whir, spin, or emit a puff of smoke. The walls were adorned with portraits of who must be the previous headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts. In the centre of the room sat Albus Dumbledore with his long, snow-white beard. 

“Good afternoon, Miss Greengrass,” he said, and she fought the strange urge to curtsey.

“Hello Professor Dumbledore”. 

“Greengrass?” asked a familiar, nasally voice. “Oh good, it’s you. Has the other one sharpened up her sloppy spellwork yet?” Astoria scanned the portraits. Of course. 

“Hello, Phineas”. She said. Phineas Nigellus Black was not even her direct ancestor but her great-great-great-something uncle– his mother was born a Greengrass, and it was her brother from whom Astoria was descended. All the same, he had a portrait in Greengrass Manor as a distinguished family member, and he had proven himself so annoying that Astoria had spent a great deal of her childhood petitioning for his removal, to no avail.

“Impertent as always, I see. You will address me as Professor Black, Sir, or nothing at all”. Astoria nodded.

“Okay. Nothing works”.

“Why-”

“-thank you, Phineas, that is quite enough,” interjected Dumbledore. Phineas huffed and crossed his arms, but fell silent. “Do take a seat, Miss Greengrass”. She drew a chair across the desk from him. “I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here”. Astoria nodded. It was occurring to her that she had never actually spoken to Dumbledore before. “Professor Trelewaney mentioned you believe yourself to be Seer”. The portraits seemed to quiet all at once. “ I’m sure she has shared with you that she does not share your opinion, but I believe with your… particular family history, attention must be paid”. She narrowed her eyes. 

“My family history?” His evasive tone reminded of her interaction with Lord Draben “You mean Edwyna Greengrass?” The portraits began murmuring incomprehensibly amongst themselves.

“In part.” said Dumbledore. “You come from a very long line of Seers. Edwyna just happens to be the most well-known”. She nodded slowly. “What do you know about your family and Divination?” She shrugged.

“Not much”. There was something guarded in his eyes, behind the twinkle of his half-moon spectacles. 

“I see. The Sight runs in your family, although it has been several generations since the Greengrasses have produced a true Seer”.  _ He’s not telling me something _ , thought Astoria,  _ why does everyone know more about me than I do?  _ But she barely knew Dumbledore. It seemed unwise to aggravate him. “Do you truly believe yourself to be such a Seer?” She thought of the prophecy she had allegedly given, earlier in the year, of her dreams of Hogwarts burning, the shimmering figures whenever she looked into the orb, and the overwhelming realism of her conversation with the Pythia.

“I do”. He nodded.

“I suspected as much. Are you aware of the existence of the Divinus Haruspex Association of Clairvoyants?” Well. It certainly rang a bell. She racked her brain.

“They’re one of the most respected coalitions of Seers,” she procured slowly, “serving Europe and Asia”. 

“Precisely. When an exceptionally talented Seer is identified, they like to involve themselves with his or her education. Now, I have written the Association, and they have agreed to send a tutor to work with you, beginning next year, if you are willing to learn”. Her eyes widened.

“Really? I-yes, I want to learn. Thank you!” He smiled.

“Good. That will be all”. The door appeared again behind her, and she scurried out of the office. 

It seemed too good to be true, which was how she knew it wasn’t. Why did he believe her so easily, and why did Divinus agree so quickly? Neither asked for any kind of demonstration or proof that she had any sort of gift. They should’ve asked. And then there was the talk about her family, the silence of the portraits when he brought up the Sight, their quiet conversations when she admitted ignorance. She wasn’t being told something. She would find out what, one way or another.

Astoria grew tired as March dragged on. She wasn’t exactly sure why– maybe all those late nights staring into the orb were catching up with her. But that had been going on since January, and it really didn’t seem like there was a reason for this sudden exhaustion. But she found herself endlessly fatigued, regardless of how many cups of coffee she drank or hours of sleep she managed to get. Even the Invigoration Draught that Theo had snuck out of Potions for her had no lasting effect. She figured she would just have to sleep for the two full weeks of the winter holidays or collapse of exhaustion, whichever happened first.

She collapsed of exhaustion first. 

It was a rainy Thursday in mid-March, and Astoria was seriously considering skipping flying class. She genuinely didn’t know whether she had the energy, and thought it might perhaps be more productive to take the opportunity to nap. But there had been something a little vicious in Katherine’s eyes when she had responded.

“That’s probably a good idea. I mean, at some point you have to take a break, if you can’t keep up”. Astoria would not back down from a challenge. She drained her coffee cup.

“I’ll be fine”. She excused herself and returned to her dormitory to grab her flying clothes, and Theodore trailed after her. 

“I really think you should just skip,” he told her, and she shook her head.

“I’m fine. I don’t need to”. He sighed. 

“Whatever point you’re trying to make isn’t worth proving. You don’t have to run yourself into the ground for nothing”. 

“I'm not making a point”. He just raised his eyebrows and looked at her. 

“Really? So it’s got nothing to do with Katherine calling you weak?”

“Fine! Whatever! I’m not going to do something that implies I’m not as good as her! What’s so wrong with that?”

“You shouldn’t make choices with the intent of proving yourself to Katherine. It doesn’t matter what you do, she’s never going to be less of a bitch”. Astoria whirled on him.

“She’s my best friend”. 

“Really? The only time you ever talk is to argue and compete against each other! You have plenty of real friends, why do you bother with her?”Astoria hoped that her expression was as venomous as she felt. 

“You might be content to live your life separate from everyone else because you put yourself up on a pedestal, you think you’re so different, but some of us live in reality. She is my  _ friend  _ and maybe you don’t understand that because you spend all your time thinking you’re better than everyone!” He looked at her for a long time.

“Not everyone”. And then he was gone. Almost shaking with anger, she felt a creeping sense of vulnerability, of unhappiness, of the heartbreaking knowledge that, despite being rude and presumptuous and cruel, he wasn’t 100% wrong.

She shook the thought and rushed down to the Quidditch pitch, arriving just shortly before being marked late. Thunder cracked as the twenty students faced Madam Hooch, who seemed to have used some kind of water-repelling charm but hadn’t shared the technique with her students. 

“We’ll be playing some friendly Quidditch today,” Madam Hooch announced.

“Yes!” Exclaimed Ginny Weasley. Normally, the entire class would have responded with a cheer, but today they were too preoccupied shivering. Even Lydia, the greatest Quidditch fan Astoria knew, could muster nothing more than a tight smile. But apparently Ginny’s enthusiasm couldn’t be tempered. Out of the corner of her eye, Astoria noticed the rest of the class turn to look at Ginny, but she couldn’t bring herself to muster the energy to turn her head. This was going to be a long, long class.

“Thank you for your enthusiasm, Miss Weasley. We will be playing a miniature tournament, between four teams of five, so that some of you will have the chance to stay warm while the rest are playing. One Keeper, two Beaters, two Chasers. We will be playing with only one Bludger, and without the Snitch, lest you lose any equipment to the elements”. Madam Hooch glanced around, noticing the third-years looking between each other. “Teams will be mixed between houses,” she said firmly. A chorus of grumbling. 

Astoria was placed on a team with Lydia, thank Merlin, and Arnold Harper, a relatively strong flier but the stupidest boy in Slytherin, which was saying something when Crabbe and Goyle existed. Their Gryffindors were Ginny Weasley and Lawrence, whose unremarkable last name Astoria had never bothered to memorize. They were to play second, and Madam Hooch attempted to send them to a locker room with the other team that was waiting, but Lydia interjected.

“Could we possibly be put in separate rooms?” She asked, and Katherine, on the other team surrounded by Gryffindors and half-blood Slytherins, gave a dirty look which Lydia seemed not to notice. “To plan our strategy?” 

“Yeah, that would be way better!” said Ginny eagerly, and Madam Hooch fixed them both with a long look.

“If this is what it takes to get some inter-house unity, then fine”. Astoria’s team was sent to the Slytherin changeroom, which had a strange, deserted feeling to it, empty of the Quidditch player’s belongings that were typically strewn everywhere. Seven lockers on one wall of the room sat unlocked, but with the names of last year’s team printed on them. _ FLINT. MONTAGUE. WARRINGTON. DERRIK. BOLE. BLETCHLEY. MALFOY.  _ Flint had graduated. She felt a tiny twinge for Derrik and Bole, both of whom were seventh years, deprived of their final year of Quidditch. It seemed unfair. 

Instead of dwelling on it too long, she took a seat on one of the benches and leaned her head against the wall behind her as Ginny and Lydia chattered excitedly. She was aware that they were talking, and vaguely perceived Harper and Lawrence try to throw in suggestions and be spoken over every once in a while, but honestly she wasn’t comprehending the words that were being said. Her eyelids were growing heavy…

“What do you think, Greengrass?” Chirped Ginny, and Astoria blearily tried to wake herself.

“Huh? About what?” Lydia scoffed lightly.

“Ignore her, she’s been out of it for weeks. She’ll be fine playing Beater she normally doesn’t care”.

“Kay…” murmured Astoria, lacking the willpower to do anything other than acquiesce.

Soon enough, Madam Hooch came to get them, and she shakily got to her feet. 

“You’ll be fine, Tori,” said Lydia quietly. “There’s only one Bludger. You can’t screw up that badly”.

As it turned out, she very much could screw up that badly. It wasn’t that she was bad at Quidditch– under normal circumstances, she prided herself on being exceptionally average at it. And things started pretty well! The rush of cold air made her a little more alert, and she was able to climb onto her broom, Beater’s bat in hand, without any issues. She even got in a few good swings at the Bludger.

While the game lasted, Lydia and Ginny, their two Chasers, were spectacular to watch. Astoria wasn’t sure she had ever seen them play together– normally they were allowed to divide their teams by house, and Ginny and Lydia competed so fiercely they nearly always managed singlehandedly to bring the game to a stalemate. Now the class was faced with the opposite problem– working together, they were unstoppable. Astoria hovered, watching the Bludger, as they scored goal after goal after goal against poor Creevey, who had drawn the short straw of playing Keeper against them. 

As Ginny and Lydia began to dominate more and more of the game, and Astoria was needed less and less, the cold rain became less effective to keep her awake. She soon found herself entirely drowsy, her chattering teeth notwithstanding. Lydia dropped the Quaffle. Ginny caught it, flying underneath her. They weaved and danced and tossed the ball back and forth, confounding the opposing Seekers. Astoria took a deep, shaky breath, adjusting her grip on her broom.

Lydia scored. Ginny wrangled the Quaffle from the other team. Astoria’s vision blurred. Lyda distracted the other Chasers. Ginny performed the Wollongong Shimmy. Another goal. Astoria felt very, very heavy… 

She awoke in a very bright room. Madam Pomfrey quickly made her way over.

“There you are. Feeling better?” Astoria thought about it. She really was– that overwhelming, shattering tiredness, seemed to have been lifted off her shoulders. She felt functional again, like a real person for the first time in weeks. 

“Yes”. 

“Took quite a bit to revitalize you. You were entirely drained– I’ve only seen the likes of it in seventh years studying for their NEWTs, and only a few times. Whatever possessed you to get on a broom in that condition?” She didn’t really have an answer. 

“Wanted to be like the House players, always in and out of here”.  Madam Pomfrey frowned.

“Quidditch injuries are no laughing matter”.

“Sorry,” muttered Astoria, not feeling very sorry.

“Well in any case, I can’t identify any underlying cause for your bout of exhaustion, however unusual it is,” said the other witch, “so just try not to work yourself too hard. You’re only in third year, after all”.

“Alright”. She  _ hadn’t  _ been working very hard. 

“And if you feel like this again, come see me  _ before  _ you collapse”. 

As she walked down to the Great Hall after being discharged, she passed Draco, who looked slightly vulnerable without Crabbe and Goyle flanking his sides. In his hands he clutched a box of chocolate frogs, and he was muttering something under his breath. His eyes widened as he noticed her.

“Astoria!” he called, and she stopped as he jogged over to her. “I heard you were in the Hospital Wing. You alright?” She stared at him warily, trying to figure out his angle.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Good,” Draco nodded, and then repeated, more to himself, “good”. 

“In the Hospital Wing?” said a ghost floating by, whirling around to face Draco and Astoria. “What for?” Astoria furrowed her brow. 

“I passed out…” she said slowly, “why?” The ghost shook her head, eyes sad.

“Oh Miss Greengrass, you poor dear. I’m very sorry”. Astoria stared at the ghost.

“ _ Why _ ?” The ghost looked at Draco.

“Oh, I see. No reason,” she said, winking. 

“What do you  _ mean _ ?” she called, but the ghost was floating away. 

Draco shrugged and looked back at her. “Where are you going?”

“Great Hall”.

“I’ll come with you”. She looked at him for a long time.

“... okay”. They walked together through the school, Draco twisting his chocolate frogs in his hands. Astoria was privately grateful that none of their other friends were in the Great Hall when they arrived. She didn’t want to deal with the scene of explaining why she was with Draco, when she herself didn’t even know. He slipped into the seat across from her, looking down at his hands while Astoria surveyed the room, trying to avoid eye contact as she waited for him to explain what the hell was happening. And then, very quickly-

“Iwsgngtovisyounhospalwin”.

“What?”

“I was going to visit you in the Hospital Wing,” he said more slowly, a pink tinge to his cheeks. Astoria blinked.

“Oh”. He rapidly pushed the chocolate frogs across the table, and she picked them up. “Thank you”. A long silence. “Why?” He looked back down at his hands and took a deep breath.

“I miss being your friend”. The words looked physically painful for him to say. “I don’t like to need anybody, but sometimes I feel like you’re the only one who tells me the truth. And…” He looked like he was choking on something very sour. Astoria felt like she could understand the gist of what he was trying to say. But call her petty, she wanted to hear him admit it out loud.

“And?” She asked. 

“And… I’m sorry” the words were very, very quiet, but Astoria figured it was the best she was going to get. “I figured we could make a deal”. She smiled slightly.

“Everything’s an exchange, hey?” He nodded.

“I stand by that. I won’t interfere in your life unless you ask me to. But I am going to tell you if I don’t agree with something, and in exchange, you have to at least consider what I have to say”. 

“Fine. But if you want me to-” -she shuddered- “-tell you when I want you to get involved in something, then you have to be willing to ask for help too”.

“I never need help”.

“I am literally going to kill you. What the fuck do you think an exchange is?” He glared at her. “You know what I think, Draco? I think I’m your only real friend, and you need me”.

“I have plenty of friends!” 

“No, you have servants! You have minions! And some part of you knows that, that’s why you forced yourself to swallow your pride and apologize to me! Because you need a real fucking friend. But I have plenty of friends! This reconciliation is only high stakes for you. So why don’t you keep that in mind”. He looked part like he wanted to hex her, part like he wanted to cry. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” was all he said. Astoria glared at him and picked up her bag.

“Then we’re done here”. She stood up.

“Wait!” She turned to look at him expectantly. “Fine. You are a real friend. And I do rely on you. Sometimes”. Astoria sat down, because again, it was the best she was going to get, and you couldn’t expect a miracle. He looked disgusted with himself. 

“Hi!” It was a first year Hufflepuff. “I was wondering-”

“Walk away right now,” said Draco, “Or I will hex you into oblivion”. The Hufflepuff’s eyes widened in alarm and she scuttered back to her table.

“Ok,” said Astoria. “Do we have a deal?” He nodded.

“Fine”. They shook hands across the table, and Astoria grinned.

“Good. Because I have  _ so  _ much to tell you”.


	20. nothing gold can stay

_“In days that follow, I discover that anger is easier to handle than grief.” -_ _Emily Giffin, Heart of the Matter (2010)_

Astoria had made plans with Theodore to study in the library together. She walked there with Daphne, who disappeared to another table while Astoria found a nook near a window for her and Theo. She pulled out her potions textbook and made some notes as she waited, until Theodore dropped into the seat across from her. 

“Hey”. Astoria looked up.

“Hi!” He leaned his head on his hand but didn’t speak, so Astoria picked up. “What’ve you been up to? I feel like I’ve barely seen you recently”. 

“You’ve been busy”. She wrinkled her brows. In the week or so since she had collapsed, she couldn’t think of any way that she’d changed her schedule. She’d been in the great hall for meals, dropping by the library between classes, and hanging out with her friends in the common room in the evenings, just like always. 

“No I haven’t”. He shrugged. 

“You seem busy”. What was that supposed to mean? She sighed and looked back at her textbook, and they worked in silence for a few moments. And then-

“So, did you ever figure out what was making you so tired?” Had they really not spoken since then? They had had a major argument, and then she had gone unconscious mid-air and fallen off of a broomstick, and then nothing?

“No. Madame Pomfrey said it just happens sometimes, when people get overworked. But I don’t really feel like I was overworking myself, which is weird”. 

“But you’ve felt normal since you were in the Hospital Wing?” 

“Yeah. It’s all super weird”. 

“It’s strange,” he agreed, and then after a little pause– “How did you and Malfoy end up best friends again?” 

“He came and found me after I passed out, and he apologized”. Theo gave her a skeptical look.

“Draco Malfoy apologized?”

“I know! I was literally shocked. But he did, and we talked about it, and now we’re good”. 

“So that’s it? ‘Now you’re good’? You were literally duelling each other in the Common Room not a month ago”. Astoria shrugged.

“Yeah, well, it was a stupid disagreement anyways”. They worked in silence for a few minutes, and then Theo looked up. 

“Look, I’ve got to run. I’ll see you later”. He slipped off, and Astoria glared after him. Some fucking date. After stewing in confusion and anger for a few moments, she got up and joined Daphne at her table. Her sister looked up.

“Where’s Theodore?” Astoria rolled her eyes.

“Gone”. Daphne frowned.

“That’s unusual. Did he say why?” 

“Nope”. Her bitterness must have shown in her tone, because the concern on Daphne’s face deepened. But as she opened her mouth to speak, her expression quickly turned to confusion. Astoria looked behind her to see what had caught Daphne’s attention- the headmistress of Beauxbatons was making her way over.

“ ‘Ello, girls,” said Madam Maxine in her heavy French accent. Astoria and her sister glanced at each other in surprise as the headmistress pulled out a chair and seated herself, looking exceptionally large at the library table, like it had been built for a child.

“Bonjour, Madame,” Daphne responded tentatively, and Madame Maxine smiled approvingly. 

“You’re Daphne Greengrass?” she asked in French, and after a moment’s surprise Daphne nodded.

“Yes. And this is my sister Astoria. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Astoria threw in a similarly polite greeting, and Madame Maxine nodded in acknowledgement, then turned back to Daphne. 

“Which year of schooling are you in?”

“Fourth year, Madame”. 

“I see. Are you aware that at Beauxbatons we have programs aimed specifically at people like you?”

“People like me?” Madame Maxine’s eyes were kind.

“You are speaking to your quill instead of writing, I notice. Might I presume you also find it difficult to absorb your textbooks readings?” The sisters exchanged another confused glance. 

“I do…” 

“And getting a spell correct, with a verbal incantation, even though you were just as powerful as any other young sorcerer, prior to attending school?” 

“Right”. Madam Maxine smiled gently.

“Yes, I presumed as much. One of my students mentioned you to me quite early in the year, and I have been observing you quite closely since”. Daphne seemed to be at a loss for words. Astoria certainly would have been. “Your learning needs are quite unique; it’s not something Hogwarts caters to. But we do”.

“I’m sorry, I’m still confused”. Daphne’s tone was controlled, but Astoria could hear her bewilderment. “What exactly is it that you’re talking about?” 

“Your difficulties with reading and writing, your troubles memorizing, and most essentially, your struggle to connect to verbal magic. The Muggles call it dyslexia. We tend not to be so formal- it’s simply that your mind is better suited to nonverbal magic. Hogwarts tends to ignore such students, even as they fall behind. You start learning nonverbal magic in sixth year and suddenly you’re exceptional. But at that point, it’s often too late. They’ve missed too much of the foundational work”. 

“So, what? Did you just come over here to tell me I’ll never be good enough?” 

“Quite the opposite. I am here to offer you a place at my school. Hogwarts cannot teach you the way you deserve. We can”. 

“How?” It was almost a whisper. 

“We do not leave our students behind at Beauxbatons. We would not force you to learn in ways that do not work for you. Your mind is not suited to verbal magic, so we would teach you nonverbal magic instead. Your examinations could be oral instead of written, and you could use that quill-” -she gestured at the scribe quill Daphne used on essays- “-for everything, including essay examinations”. Daphne stared at her. “I have a letter for your parents, if you’d like me to send it”.

“Can I think about it?”

“Certainly. But don’t think for too long. I imagine your parents would appreciate being notified sufficiently in advance”. 

A few days later, the Slytherins sat in the Common Room, laughing and gossipping as Zabini and Pansy did a dramatic reenactment of Neville Longbottom’s disastrous attempts to deflect their hexes in Defense Against the Dark Arts that morning. 

“Although Daphne didn’t fare too well either, did you?” said Pansy with a nasty smile once Zabini had finished shaking and covering his head on the ground. 

“I had Twitchy Ears for hours,” Daphne responded with an easy grin. But as the group laughed lightly and moved on, Astoria noticed her sister staring pensively into the fire. Daphne still hadn’t made a decision on Beauxbatons, but given the train would be taking them home for Easter break in just a few days, she didn’t have a lot of time. 

As it grew later, the group began to drift off to bed, and Astoria moved to sit next to Theo, who had been sitting slightly removed from the group. He had been reading a book, only half paying attention to the group, throwing in commentary only rarely. But Astoria could feel him paying attention when she spoked, his eyes flicking to hers occasionally before returning to his book. It was weird. He had been behaving this way, as someone adjacent but not central to their friends, for as long as Astoria had been at Hogwarts. But in the last couple months, since they had been dating, and even really since they had been friends at all, the large group hadn’t all been hanging out together. Maybe he took a greater interest in smaller groups, or maybe she had made herself less central to the conversations and lingered on the sidelines with Theo. Either way, now that the schism (which, it seemed, had been entirely Astoria and Draco’s fault) had been mended, it didn’t really feel like they were hanging out together, even when they were.

“Are you going to the Astronomy Tower tonight?” It was the last Friday of term, and there weren’t any classes. Of course he would be. 

“Yeah,” he said hesitantly. “Ah, look. I think we need to talk”. Astoria’s eyes widened.

“Okay. Um, do you want to now, or…” He glanced around. 

“In a little bit?” Great. So it had to be a private conversation. Astoria leaned back against the pillows, heart thumping in her chest. Fuck. Why did he just have to bring that up now, and then make her worry? What was he going to say? Was he breaking up with her? What would she say? Should she break up with him first, before he could do it to her? Astoria began to feel nauseous. They sat in silence as the minutes dragged by and more students left, until Theodore finally took a deep breath and said–

“What are you doing? Are you busy?” Was she busy? No, she had been sitting here stressing for 45 minutes! Astoria bit her tongue.

“Nope,” she grimaced, “let’s talk”. There were a few groups left in the Common Room, but they were spread out and all seemed to be doing their own thing. 

“Look,” he said, “I just don’t think things are working out”. Astoria felt the burning in the back of her throat immediately, but refused to let tears spring to her eyes. She knew it was coming, she had been sitting here, stewing in it, for nearly an hour, but it still hit her like a ton of bricks. 

“Can I ask why?” she said. She kept her voice flat. Neutral. She wouldn’t show any weakness. 

“Things have been different,” he said, “and it doesn’t feel right anymore”. 

“By different,” said Astoria spitefully, “you mean I’m friends with Draco again”. 

“In a way”.

“What, I’m not allowed to have close male friends? That’s pretty fucked up, Theodore, and you- ” 

“It’s not about his gender,” said Theodore derisively, “it’s about who he is”.

“That’s absurd. You understand that that’s absurd? What does that even mean?”

“It means, that that entire group is stupid and selfish and msiguided and spends all their time squabbling with little people for little victories and none of it matters at all. But I’m different. And I think you’re different too. I think we’re meant for something different, something  _ more _ . And I thought you saw that they are the ones that are absurd! I thought you understood that. But now, you’re back in the centre of things, and maybe you aren’t so different after all”.

“But,” she said measuredly, “just to be clear, you’re breaking up with me because I had the audacity to make amends with one of my closest friends”. 

“I guess so,” he said, and this time Astoria couldn’t help the tears from springing to her eyes. 

“Right,” she said, standing up, “well at least you’re honest. You may have a superiority complex that isolates you so much you have no real friends, but at least you’ve got that going for you”. 

“That’s-” Astoria cut him off. 

“-They are stupid sometimes, that’s true. But we’re still in school! What happens right now may not matter in the long run, but it’s not the long run yet. They– _ we _ – care about what happens right here, right now, and I don't think there’s anything wrong with that. And you know what? In insisting you are different and unique and better and  _ destined for something more  _ or whatever, you are being as foolish and immature as we ever could be for daring to care about the present”. Astoria stormed off before he could respond. 

When she stepped into her dormitory, she was shaking with tears. The girls who were still awake wrapped their arms around her and sat down on her bed with her. Although she wasn’t conscious of waking the rest of the girls up, they soon joined, all five third years squashed together on one bed. Astoria explained, in shaky breaths, and her friends responded in comforting voices, stroking her arms and back soothingly and patiently holding her as she wept. Theodore might see himself as different and special, but here were Astoria’s friends to catch her when she fell, and in this moment she wouldn’t have traded that for all the uniqueness in the world.

By the next morning, although her legs still felt shaky, Astoria found she was more angry now, than sad. Anger was comfortable. Anger was easy. All five girls walked down to breakfast together, which was rare in and of itself, and Astoria served herself breakfast. Surrounded by her friends, she felt almost strong. 

“Hey guys,” said a Ravenclaw, approaching their table, “I’m doing a survey-” Astoria shot him the most venemous glare she could muster, and as intended, the other student shut the fuck up.

“Don’t talk to me”. The Ravenclaws eyes widened and he walked away. Katherine and Lydia snickered, and at their table, few young Hufflepuffs gaped at her as she took a sip of her coffee. She slammed the mug down on the table. “What are you looking at?” The first years yelped and turned back around. Being a Slytherin was  _ fun _ .

Theodore arrived in the Great Hall, seated himself only a few spaces away, and served himself breakfast with extraordinary nonchalance. He looked over at Astoria and her friends, who were all shooting him dirty looks on her behalf.

“Pass the bacon?” Astoria’s face must have looked as murderous as she felt, because before she could pick up the platter and throw it at his head, Rebecca had very quickly grabbed it and passed it over. 

The morning was sunny and bright, which didn’t seem fair. The universe could’ve at the least had the decency to provide some mist, or some rain. It was, after all, Scotland in March. The first sunny day in weeks could’ve waited. But the weather was beautiful, and it was the Saturday before Easter break, and her friends wanted to go down to the lake.

So she accompanied them down, and they spent the day basking out in the spring sun, truly enjoying the grounds for the first time in weeks. They were joined by Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy and Tracey, who loudly made their way over, Draco and Pansy leading the conversation as usual. But after a minute or two, Draco sat down in the grass next to Astoria.

“Theodore told me,” he said, and Astoria looked down. “You good?” For some reason she didn’t feel the need to brush him off. 

“I think I hate him,” she told him simply, “I really, really liked him, and it’s only been a day, but I’m so angry, and I really think I hate him”. 

“Well, if I’m being honest, I always thought you’d be the one to end things there”. She looked at him curiously.

“What do you mean?” He shrugged

“You’re smart, and pretty, and popular, and, well, nothing against the guy, but he barely ever talks, does he? Seems to like his own company more than anyone else’s. That’s got to get boring”. Astoria grinned.

“You think I’m pretty”. She sang, and he rolled his eyes.

“Did I say pretty? I meant pretty horrific to look at. Absolutely grotesque”. 

“Too late!” She said imperiously, “you’ve given me a compliment and you can’t take it back”. 

“Astoria!” cried Pansy, and they all looked over. Next to her, Katherine winced. “You and Nott broke up?”  _ Sorry,  _ mouthed Katherine, or at least that’s what Astoria hoped she was trying to say. “About time! I put a few bets on it, Crabbe and Goyle, you each owe me a galleon!” They grumbled as they fished around through their bags, and Pansy continued. “I bet you’re feeling pretty stupid for not getting in the pool when you could, Draco, you could be profiting!” She snatched up the coins. “So? What was it? What was the last straw?” Astoria glared at her. “Or was it the other way around? Oh my god, did he-” Astoria stood up.

“Fuck off, Pansy”. She set off towards the castle. 

  
  



	21. the road to hell

“I, _ myself, am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” -  _ _ Augusten Burroughs, Magical Lives (2004) _

**April, 1995**

When they went home for Easter break, Daphne was carrying a letter from Madame Maxine. Their father read it silently, save the occasional scoff, after which Astoria and Daphne would exchange panicked glances. 

“Dragon’s dung”. He said when he had finished, deadly calm. “That’s what this is. Hogwarts is the greatest wizarding school in the world”. 

“But Father, they can _help_ _ me _ !” Daphne’s voice was high-pitched and strained, like she was fighting back tears.

“You don’t need special treatment, you need discipline”.

“But Hogwarts hasn’t worked! I’ve been there four years and I’ve only gotten worse. But Madame Maxine believes she can teach me. She believes she can make me a good witch”.

“And what would you have me tell society? My daughter, a  _ Greengrass,  _ couldn’t take it at Hogwarts? She wasn’t good enough?

“Madame Maxine specifically invited her!” Astoria involved herself. “The headmistress of an ancient wizarding school noticed  _ Daphne _ , out of every student at Hogwarts, and specifically asked her to study at her school because she believes Daphne has great potential! That’s the truth. That’s all you have to tell anyone”. 

“This does not concern you!” shouted their father, and Astoria looked down. But he seemed to consider what she had said all the same. 

“This Madame Maxine, she believes she can make you worthy of the Greengrass name?” 

“Yes,” said Daphne quietly, “she says she can teach me to be a powerful witch”. Their father looked at her for a long time. 

“Fine,” he said slowly. “But if you haven’t improved in one year, you will no longer be a Greengrass. I will send you abroad and you will never return”. 

“Thank you”. Daphne looked terribly frightened, but her voice was steady all the same.

“Don’t thank me,” their father said sharply. “Live up to me”. 

Back at Hogwarts, Astoria found herself once again plagued by dreams. They often began mundanely, like an ordinary day at school, so Astoria might believe she was awake, and then she would go to Defense Against the Dark Arts- always Defense, never any other class– and the castle would begin to crumble, or else Professor Moody would transform into a terrible monster, or the floor would disappear and they would all go plummeting through the air. And if she could, she would run, and often find herself in the middle of a maze. She would run, and run, and run, until she found herself in a graveyard with two faceless boys, surrounded by a group of people with the faces of snakes. Then, one of the boys (always the same one, with lighter hair), would die. Sometimes he would just dissolve, sometimes he’d be hit by a jet of green light she recognized as the killing curse, sometimes he would fall into a cauldron of fire. But he’d always disappear, and then Astoria and the other boy would run, and run, and keep running. 

If the hedge didn’t materialize, she would end up following a blond boy through an endless room of clutter, with towers of books so tall she couldn’t see the tops of them and all manners of treasures and trinkets. He would open up some sort of wardrobe and climb into it and disappear, and try as she might Astoria could not follow him, so she would just keep wandering through the room until she came across a section that was entirely full of hammocks. She would climb into the green one- there was only one green one, always, and she always found herself walking towards it. It seemed to be hers. 

It always ended with Hogwarts burning. She would follow the faceless boy until they found themselves back on the castle grounds, or else the room would collapse and she would find herself in the great hall. The entrance hall would be full of bodies, all of them faceless but all of them in Hogwarts robes, and the entire castle would burn down around her. She would jolt upright in bed, heart pounding, her classmates’ screams still echoing in her ears. 

“I’ve been having dreams again,” she admitted to Lydia, who had noticed her frequent yawning and been concerned about another bout of exhaustion. “Bad ones”. Lydia chewed on her lip.

“What about?” She asked, and Astoria explained.

“And you’re sure you can’t recognize anyone’s faces?” Astoria sighed.

“I’m sure”. She had tried, really, and she had tried to intervene or run the other way or not do anything at all, but regardless of the path she took, the castle’s entrance hall always ended up littered with corpses. 

Shortly thereafter, Astoria found herself once again cornered by Daphne, Lydia, and Rebecca. Daphne had scarcely been seen since Easter break, since she had spent most of her time not in Hogwarts classes over with the Beauxbatons students, acquainting herself with the teachers and taking placement tests to match her with the right classes. For her to be here, especially with Rebecca and Lydia, could mean only that they wanted to talk about the prophecy. 

“We never got a chance to talk about your prophecy after the second task,” said Daphne slowly, and Astoria sighed.

“Should we have?”

“Yes!” Cried Rebecca, “we said that if the second task was about water, we’d take that as confirmation that it’s about the Triwizard Tournament!”

“ _ You  _ agreed that. I never admitted to anything”. 

“Well regardless, it’s confirmed”. Lydia began to read off a parchment. “ _ Through water deep and fire’s breath _ – check and check. The dragons were fire’s breath, and the Black Lake was water deep. And then later it says  _ the king of snakes and skulls awaits. The spare will fall, or crumble into all he hates.  _ Well, when you were telling me about your dream, it all seemed a little familiar. Didn’t you say there were a bunch of people with the faces of snakes, and one of your faceless boys always dies?” Neither Rebecca nor Daphne seemed confused by the end of Lydia’s point, and Astoria glared at her.

“You’re running around telling people about my dreams?”

“Just Rebecca and Daphne! Look, Astoria, if we’re right, and it’s all connected to the Triwizard Tournament, this could be really bad!” 

“If you’re seeing someone actually dying, then death could be literal death. Someone might die in the third task, Astoria!”

“Well I’m not going to be the one to kill them!” She cried. “What am I meant to do? Why is it my responsibility?”

“It’s your responsibility,” said Daphne seriously, ever the older sister, “because you know about it. You may not have chosen to take it on, but you Saw it all the same”.

“I think you ought to tell Dumbledore,” said Rebecca, “If someone might die, he’s their best bet”.

“And besides,” Lydia added, “you said it always ends with Hogwarts burning. That’s something Dumbledore needs to know about”. 

“He’s offered to help you be trained as a Seer,” said Daphne, and Astoria gritted her teeth. She had only told Daphne, but now she’d have to explain to her friends, not only about Divinus, but also why she hadn’t mentioned it. “If you find out something he needs to know about, you owe it to him to tell him”.

In the common room that night, the students were, as usual, abuzz with chatter. Astoria, however, was distracted by the poignant knowledge that she might, at freshly fourteen, hold someone’s life in her hands. Or she might not. Maybe Daphne, Rebecca, and Lydia were wrong. Instinctively, she brought her hand up to her laurel necklace. They weren’t Seers. What did they know of prophecy? 

But what did she know, really? How could she be sure they were wrong? She needed to know more. Around her, her friends talked and laughed and didn’t question her silence. They wouldn’t question her slipping away, either. 

She made her way to the dormitory, extracting her crystal ball from its hiding place at the bottom of the chest. She stared into the orb, focusing with all her might on the faceless boys. Slowly, they materialized from the shadows, blinking at her from the familiar graveyard of her dreams. One died, as always, and the other began to run. She tore her eyes away and took a moment to center herself back in the dormitory. Looking back down at the orb, she forced the scene to replay itself.

“Show me your faces” she murmured, “who are you?” Their blank faces began to form features– noses and freckles, a single lip, the flash of an eye. But as they twisted and contorted, they never showed more than one feature at a time, and always so brief and random she had no picture of what they might look like all together. She forced the scene to replay over, and over, and over again until she was so exhausted she thought she might cry. No faces formed.

**May, 1995**

As the days grew warmer, the students began spending more and more time outdoors. Astoria and her friends would often slip off to the courtyard for the short breaks between classes, mulling about with other students. One day, some of the seventh year boys were yelling and tumbling around with each other, fighting over a fanged frisbee, itself fighting to escape them. There was laughter, and some yelling, although Astoria wasn’t entirely sure what they were saying simply because she wasn’t paying enough attention.

The frisbee sailed overhead as students throughout the courtyard ducked underneath it. It arced downwards towards Astoria and her friends, and Rebecca jumped out of the way just in time. She rolled her eyes and let out a short, frustrating spit of air. 

“Oi!” Called Peregrine Derrick, one of the Slytherin Beaters. “Pass that here!” Rebecca looked at the frisbee, which was snarling as it rested on the cobblestones. 

“Get it yourself. I’m not touching that thing”. Derrick gave her a dirty look.

“Just throw it over,” he said, sounding unexpectedly annoyed. Rebbeca balked. 

“No! It’s not even allowed at Hogwarts, not to mention it has  _ fangs _ ”. Astoria felt like she should just pass it herself, but looking at the whirling fangs surrounding it, she found herself no more inclined than her friend. Derrick gave an exaggerated sigh, half-jogging across the courtyard to grab the frisbee. He shot Rebecca a glare as he moved away, and as he was leaving, with his back turned, a quiet, exacerbated

“Mudbloods”. He breathed. Derrick’s back was turned, he was walking away, and the word was an exasperated whisper. He certainly hadn’t meant for anyone to hear it. 

Astoria hexed him before she even realized she wanted to hex him. Her first thought was  _ oh shit _ , because she definitely couldn’t fight a seventh year, and before she had any time to process beyond that–

“Detention, Miss Greengrass”. It was Professor McGonagall’s voice from behind her. Astoria turned around.

“But Professor, he-”

“There is no excuse for attacking a fellow student”. Derrick grinned, and began to move away. “Not so fast, Mr. Derrick,” called McGonagall, and he froze. “There is no excuse for using the word you did either. You will serve a detention as well, and ten points from Slytherin”.

“What? You didn’t take any points from her!” 

“And the frisbee, Mr. Bole”. Lucian Bole, the other beater, tentatively handed McGonagall the contraband. “Mr. Derrick, I suggest you visit the Hospital Wing and have Madame Pomfrey have a look at that welt from Miss Greengrass’ admittedly exemplary Stinging Jinx”. Derrick glowered for a moment, then moved along. Just before he turned the corner, Astoria spotted him bring his hand up to the mark from her spell. 

Astoria turned to say something to Rebecca, but she was gone.

She couldn’t find her at all until Charms later that afternoon. At first it seemed like Rebecca wasn’t coming at all, but she slipped in just seconds before the bell rang and seated herself in a far corner. 

Astoria was quickly distracted from wondering about Rebecca by quite possibly the strangest Charms class of her life. Professor Flitwick lectured for about half the class on the process to create a spell, and then announced an ‘innovative new project’, which hadn’t been tried in Hogwarts history. 

“I am of the belief that the excitement of the final task, and the subsequent crowning of this year’s Triwizard Champion, will greatly impede on your ability to prepare for your examinations, and so a classic examination would not be an accurate assessment of your skill. So, instead, you are each asked to invent your own charm! This may be the combination of two spells, the amendment of an existing spell to serve a sufficiently different purpose, or even creating your own spell from scratch, although that would be significantly more difficult, and likely above any of your skill levels. The week before the final task, you will present your charm to the class, with a short presentation on how you developed it”. 

Rebecca rushed out of class as soon as they were dismissed, so Astoria jumped out of her seat and followed her, winding through the students milling slowly out the exit. She dashed down the hallway and grabbed Rebecca’s arm.

“Hey,” Rebecca turned to her, her face conveying a neutrality that seemed practiced. 

“Hi,” Astoria waited a second or two for her to say anything else, but she didn’t. Alright.

“Some project, hey?” Rebecca nodded.

“Never thought I’d be ask to make my own spell in third year”. Another pause. 

“Where have you been all day?”

“What do you mean?” Astoria gritted her teeth.

“I don’t know, I just haven’t seen you”. Rebecca laughed lightly, but it didn’t seem genuine.

“Do we normally spend every single second of the day together?” Astoria abruptly stopped walking, and Rebecca paused with some reluctance. The rest of the students flowed around them. 

“Merlin, stop fucking around. Derrick called you a  _ mudblood _ , and then I literally hexed a seventh year, and then you ran away, and I haven’t seen you since. What’s going on?” Rebecca’s jaw tightened.

“Alright, I have been avoiding you. Because I don’t want to talk to you about this”.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rebecca rubbed her forehead and let out a deep sigh.

“Fuck, I really don’t want to deal with this”.

“With  _ what _ ?” asked Astoria sharply. The hallway was empty now. 

“With this! You! This unending hypocrisy– I suppose you expect me to thank you, for attacking Derrick,-”

“-I do not!”

“But I’m sure you’re feeling righteous nonetheless, for being angry on my behalf, despite that you use that word  _ all the time _ !” Astoria was taken aback. 

“But you’re  _ not _ ! They can’t just call you that, it’s insulting!”

“Oh?” Asked Rebecca witheringly. “And are you sure you’re not the one who feels insulted by the idea that you might associate with someone below your status? Because I’m not sure you have any right to be insulted by something that had nothing to do with you”. 

“That’s not what I’m saying! I don’t understand why _you’re_ not !” Rebecca crossed her arms. 

“The word mudblood bothers me. It’s meant to make me feel like I’m worth less than I am. It’s meant to wound and to dehumanize. But you don’t care about the cruelty of the word, you use it! You aren’t offended I was called a mudblood, you’re offended I was called muggleborn! I don’t believe my blood status makes me lesser. But you do, and that’s why you’re so much angrier than me”. Astoria was dumbfounded.

“Rebecca, you’re not muggleborn”.

“Really? You weren’t too sure about that yourself, until we became friends, and all of a sudden I was unquestionably a half-blood”.

“You have two pureblood grandparents,” Astoria told her, and Rebecca shrugged.

“I have two Muggle parents, and I completely grew up in the Muggle world. I never even met my magical family until it was clear I was a witch too. People focus on the details that they want to see. You don’t want me to be muggleborn, so I’m not. Isn’t that enough to show you that it’s all bullshit?” Astoria was barely angry anymore– she was just confused.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say”. Rebecca sighed again. 

“You decide people’s values based off their blood status. But mine is ambiguous, so you got to know me, and then assigned me a place on your hierarchy in your head that was most acceptable to you. But you thinking I’m a halfblood doesn’t make me any less muggleborn, and people thinking I’m muggleborn doesn’t make me less of a halfblood. I’m both, and I’m neither, and if someone can be two blood statuses at once, then it can’t possibly matter”. 

Astoria silently crossed her arms and sat down on a bench in the hallway. Rebecca leaned against the wall, and they sat together in a heavy quiet for a few moments. 

“But it does matter,” she said dumbly, “It has to matter”. There was a long, resigned look on Rebecca’s face. 

“No,” said Rebecca simply, “it doesn’t. You can value people based on who they are as an individual instead of who their family is. You know that, because you did it with me. Maybe it’s time to start doing it with other people. Including yourself”. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen I love writing Astoria she's a very cool character but ohmygod did someone need to call her on her bs


End file.
